JVST  TALKS 

ON 
COMMON  THEMES 


GEORGE  HOLMES  HOWISON 


JUST  TALKS 
ON  COMMON  THEMES 


BY 

ARTHUR  G.  STAPLES 
v 


J._SCUDNEY  PUBLISHING  CO. 

BOSTON,  MASS. 
1920 


McvV»  SCrvi  —      r \a\V\   W»V»avC4 

Copyright 

1919 
A.  G.  Staples 

Second  Printing— Revised  Edition 


PREFACE 

This  book  is  a  selection  from  articles  appearing 
each  day  in  the  columns  of  the  Lewiston  Evening 
Journal,  a  newspaper  published  in  Lewiston-Auburn, 
Maine.  This  accounts  for  the  many  local  allusions  and 
Maine  colloquialisms. 

No  apology  is  needed  for  the  publication  of  this 
book — or  if  such  apology  be  required,  it  should  not 
come  from  the  writer.  One  hundred  readers  (more  or 
less)  contend  for  the  distinction  of  being  the  first  to 
suggest  that  these  familiar  essays  be  put  in  a  book. 
Left  later,  to  the  discrimination  of  the  same  public,  one 
thousand  readers  professed  by  letter  a  desire  to  have 
copies  of  this  book  when  published.  Whether  they 
will  regret  it,  is  a  matter  for  the  future  to  determine ; 
but  it  leaves  the  publishers  comfortable,  since  they 
have  no  critics  to  appease  and  no  large  market  to  seek. 

It  will  be  seen  that  many  of  the  sketches  are  auto- 
biographical. Autobiography  is  always  a  matter  of 
taste.  It  is  true  that  there  is  little  of  interest  in  com- 
mon lives ;  yet,  there  is  value  in  the  sum  total  of  human 
experience.  For  instance,  a  certain  man  who  lived  a 
quiet  life  once  wrote  two  books.  One  of  them  was  to  be 
his  monument ;  in  it  he  "solved"  all  the  problems  of  life. 
In  the  other  book  were  told  the  simple  annals  of  his 
own  life.  The  former  book  is  forgotten — out  of  print; 
the  latter  is  read  by  thousands,  daily.  The  world  may 
thus  find  something  of  interest  in  any  commonplace 
life — especially  if  it  be  told  with  fidelity  to  truth.  It 
is  the  fond  belief  of  the  writer  that  if  there  is  any 
virtue  in  any  portion  of  this  book,  it  lies  in  the  fact  that 
these  sketches  were  written  out  of  a  feeling  of 
intimacy  with  his  public,  in  a  purely  spontaneous 
enjoyment  of  the  themes,  and  in  belief  in  their  truth. 

One  word  more,  the  material  for  many  of  these 
sketches  came  from  many  sources,  to  all  of  which 
thanks  are  due  without  further  notice.  It  is  hoped 
that  the  book  will  do  no  harm  and  there  is  a  faint  hope 
in  the  miraculous — that  it  may  get  a  smile,  or  a  tear  or 
a  second  thought  in  a  busy  world. 

Arthur  G.  Staples. 

LEWISTON,  MAINE,  May,  1919. 

849340 


CONTENTS 


Chapter  Page 

ON  "LET'S  Go  FISHING" 3 

ON  "BEING  A  MARTIAL-FIGGER" 5 

ON  "A  TOAST  TO  THE  FLAG" 8 

ON  "MAKE  YOUR  WIFE  A  PARTNER"  9 

ON  "THE  BUTTERFLY  AND  THE  PIG" 12 

ON  "DOGS-IN-GENERAL" 14 

ON  "THE  SACRIFICE  OF  THE  ROSE"  16 

ON  "WOMEN'S  BACK  HAIR" 19 

ON  "THE  SHRINES  OF  HOME" 21 

ON  "MAINE  AND  MIDSUMMER"  23 

ON  "GOING  TO  THE  DENTIST" 26 

ON  "RESPONSIBILITY  OF  A  PERFECT  BABY" 28 

ON  "THE  GOING  AND  THE  COMING" 30 

ON  "THE  OLD  TIME  DISTRICT  SCHOOL"  32 

ON  "THE  NORTHWEST  WIND"  34 

ON  "THOUGHTS  ON  THE  HEN" 37 

ON  "FURNACES"  39 

ON  "HATS,  HERE  AND  THERE" 41 

ON  "PLAYING  THE  GAME" 44 

ON  "THE  POET  AND  THE  APPLE  BLOSSOM" 46 

ON  "SHADOW  AND  SUBSTANCE" 48 

ON  "FEATHER  BEDS,  ET  CETERA" 50 

ON  "STICKING  TO  THE  JOB" 52 

ON  "THE  BATH-TUB"  54 

ON  "CLOTHES" 57 

ON  "HELL" 59 

ON  "WEARING  FALSE  TEETH" 61 

ON  "WINTER  DAYS  AND  NIGHTS" 64 

ON  "PAPER  COLLAR  DAYS"  67 

ON  "THE  BROOKS  OF  MAINE" 69 

ON  "OLD-FASHIONED  CELLARS"  72 

ON  "THE  LITTERED  DESK" 75 

ON  "MY  GRANDFATHER'S  SYNTHETIC  WAGON" 77 

ON  "BEING  GRAND  HIOSCYAMUS"  .  80 


XII  CONTENTS 

ON  "THE  Cow" 84 

ON  "SPRING  IN  CITIES" 86 

ON  "  'TAIN'T  THE  PIP  AND  'TAIN'T  THE  FLU" 89 

ON  "FATHER"  91 

ON  "BOYS  WHO  WORK" 94 

ON  "A  NEW  HAT" 96 

ON  "THE  SPIRIT  OF  RETURNING" 99 

ON  "STONE  WALLS" 102 

ON  "MAKING  THE  BEST  OF  THINGS" 104 

ON  "THE  VOICE  OF  THE  FROG" 106 

ON  "THE  FAIR  AVERAGE  OF  WICKEDNESS" 108 

ON  "!T  COSTS  BUT  Two  CENTS" 110 

ON  "A  NIGHT  IN  THE  OPEN" 112 

ON  "TOM  AND  His  HATCHET" 114 

ON  "TREES  AND  FORESTS" 116 

ON  "THE  GOLDEN  RULE  IN  DAILY  LIFE" 119 

ON  "THE  QUIETER  ROAD" 121 

ON  "THE  TRUTH  WITHOUT  A  TEXT" 123 

ON  "THE  LADIES"  125 

ON  "THE  PRICE  OF  A  GOOD  TIME" 128 

ON  "THE  WIND  AND  THE  SOUL" 130 

ON  "THE  APPEAL  OF  MYSTERY"  132 

ON  "THEM  PANTS" 134 

ON  "THE  CLOCK  OF  THE  CENTURIES" 137 

ON  "THE  INTOLERABLE" 139 

ON  "CULTIVATE  THE  BIRDS"  141 

ON  "You  NEVER  CAN  TELL  TILL  You  TRY" 144 

ON  "THAT'S  THE  BOY  OF  IT" 146 

ON  "TRUNDLE  BEDS" 149 

ON  "PROGRESS  AND  WONDER" 151 

ON  "BEING  THE  WHOLE  THING" 154 

ON  "BEAUTY  OF  THE  WORLD"  156 

ON  "PASTURES" 158 

ON  "THINKING  TWICE" 160 

ON  "THE  WAYSIDE  LILY"  163 

ON  "TABLE  MANNERS" 165 

ON  "FRACTIONS  HERE  AND  THERE"  168 

ON  "KEEPING  A  DOG"  170 

ON  "MAN'S  NECKTIES"  172 

ON  "MAKING  AN  IMPRESSION"  .                                          .  175 


CONTENTS  XIII 

ON  "WHAT  THIS  DAY  REALLY  MEANS" 178 

ON  "A  CERTAIN  FORM  OF  LAZINESS" 180 

ON  "CLASSIFYING  MEN" 188 

ON  "LIVING  BY  RIVERS"  185 

ON  "THE  FIRST  SKATES" 187 

ON  "THE  SCIENTIFIC  USE  OF  WHISKERS" 189 

ON  "THE  LIGHT  IN  THE  EAST"  192 

ON  "AFTER  DINNER  SPEAKERS" 194 

ON  "WALT  WHITMAN  AND  SOME  OTHERS" 197 

ON  "THE  FIRST  SNOW  STORM" 200 

ON  "MAKE  YOUR  LIFE  A  LIVING  SPRING" 202 

ON  "GREETINGS  TO  SCHOOL  CHILDREN" 205 

ON  "THE  OLD-TIME  BOY-SHOP" 207 

ON  "BREAKING  OF  DROUTHS"  209 

ON  "OWNING  HALF  OF  A  HORSE" 211 

ON  "JUSTICE  AS  A  SOLVENT" 214 

ON  "A  STORY  'How  HOSEA  CAME'  " 217 

ON  "PRESERVATION  OF  THE  HOME"  219 

ON  "THE  PINE  TREE"  222 

ON  "TOTAL  DEPRAVITY  OF  INANIMATE  THINGS" 225 

ON  "THE  HALF  HOUR  BEFORE  You  SLEEP" 228 

ON  "THE  OLD  COUNTRY  BRASS  BAND"  230 

ON  "MORE  ON  THE  OLD  BRASS  BAND" 233 

ON  "CAPPING  THE  MAIN  TRUCK" 285 

ON  "HAUNTED  ROOMS"  238 

ON  "LOVING  THE  SCHOOLMARM" 240 

ON  "THE  DOG  ON  THE  BRIDGE" 243 

ON  "WOMAN"  245 

ON  "GIVING  ADVICE,  GRATIS" 248 

ON  "OLD  PICTURES  IN  THE  JUNK  SHOP" 251 

ON  "THE  WOODS  OF  GOD" 253 

ON  "MAINE  IN  AUTUMN" 256 

ON  "MAKING  OUT  YOUR  INCOME  TAX" 258 

ON  "WATCH  YOUR  STEP" 261 

ON  "LITTLE  SHAVERS"  263 

ON  "KILLING  THE  PIG"  2«5 

ON  "THE  PUSSY-WILLOW" 268 

ON  "THE  TITLE  AND  THE  FAMILY"  270 

ON  "CONFESSIONS  OF  A  SMOKER" 273 

ON  "DOWN  AND  NOT  OUT"  .  .  276 


XIV  CONTENTS 

ON  "THE  ETERNAL  SEARCH" 278 

ON  "GENTLENESS  AS  A  PRACTICE"  280 

ON  "SOME  STOIC  PHILOSOPHY" 282 

ON  "GOOD  MAJORS  AND  BAD"  284 

ON  "WHEN  I  AM  TIRED"  287 

ON  "SEARCHING  YOUR  NEIGHBOR'S  PAST"  .  .  290 


JUST  TALKS 
ON  COMMON  THEMES 


ON  "LETS  GO 

ETS  GO  a-fishing. 

I  did  not  say  that  first. 
The  birds  said  it;  the  green  grass  said  it; 
the  bud  on  the  tree  said  it ;  the  wind  soft  in 
your  face  with  a  thin  odor  of  the  fields,  said 
it;  the  spring  rain  on  the  roof  said  it,  or 
rather  sang  it,  as  you  have  heard  it  before  on  some 
night  when  you  lay  before  the  open  fire  in  camp  and 
heard  the  high-powered  gales  blow  off  the  big  lake  and 
the  branches  of  the  trees  softly  brushing  the  roof 
overhead. 

No  man  who  loves  to  go  fishing  can  be  wholly  bad. 
He  cannot,  in  the  reason  of  things,  get  near  to  Nature 
and  fail  to  look  up  to  the  hills  and  contemplate  his  own 
place  in  the  immensity  of  creation — dependent,  transi- 
tory, a  mystery  among  mysteries — and  feel  that 
there  is  a  God.  The  wind!  What  a  strange  thing  it 
is!  The  sky!  How  strange  and  awesome  a  roof! 
The  waters!  How  stirred  with  music  against  the 
beaches!  The  blue  hills,  how  beautiful!  The  rain- 
clouds  and  the  sun,  so  full  of  glory !  Is  there  any  man 
who  sits  back  in  his  boat  and  fishes,  not  feeling  that  he 
is  an  almoner  of  God  ?  Is  there  any  man  who  does  not 
know  that  the  town  and  his  small  belongings  therein, 
be  they  millions,  are  very  trifling  by  the  side  of  the 
Power  that  put  the  color  in  the  lake-side  grasses,  that 
tinted  the  spring  leaflets  on  the  willows  and  made  the 
very  fish  that  he  is  seeking  with  his  lure,  so  lithe  and 
beautiful ! 

You  and  I  have  a  right  to  go  fishing.  We  have  it 
just  because  it  is  a  part  of  the  religion  of  the  out-of- 
doors.  Not  even  the  Hun  has  a  right  to  forbid  it.  It 
is  a  thing — this  right — that  we  will  figtyt  for  if  need 
be.  It  is  a  right  because  it  is  symbolic 'of  peace  and 
freedom.  It  is  a  right  because  it  teaches  men  to  be 


4    JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

kind  and  good.  It  is  a  right  because  it  softens  and 
betters  manhood.  It  is  a  right  because  we  love  it  so. 

The  same  with  all  Nature.  We  owe  her  all  that  we 
owe  motherhood.  Out  of  her  being  came  we — back  to 
her  bosom  we  return.  To  her  side  we  should  go  as 
often  as  we  can.  It  is  not  fishing  exactly — not  the 
struggle,  the  patient  game,  the  lure  and  the  strike  and 
the  prey  that  I  mean  by  fishing.  It  is  the  prospect, 
the  preparation,  the  journey,  the  first  sight  of  wild 
country,  the  clean  odor  of  the  forest,  the  distant  vistas, 
the  first  glimpse  of  the  blue,  rippling  waters  of  the 
lakes.  What  a  thrill.  How  the  true  fisherman's  heart 
leaps !  What  ecstacy  as  he  sits  him  down  for  the  first 
time  each  year  by  the  rusty  old  camp-nook  and  ingle. 
What  memories.  What  forgotten  faces.  What  dear 
friends  of  long  ago  whose  faces  shine  out  of  the  dusky 
corners  of  the  old  camp!  Gone!  Not — if  we  fisher- 
men know  it.  Such  sacred  friendships  were  never 
born  to  be  buried  in  oblivion.  No !  They  were  created 
to  be  renewed  beyond  the  purple  peaks  remote,  in  new 
domains  where  lakes  beneficent  will  wait  for  anglers, 
yet. 

Let's  go  fishing. 

We  shall  come  back  renewed.  It  will  be  like  going 
to  "blighty"  out  of  the  trenches.  We  shall  be  the  bet- 
ter for  it  when  we  return. 

Let's  go  fishing. 


ON  "BEING  A  MARTIAL-FIGGER" 

OU  rarely  see  an  old  chap  like  me  or  a  sawed- 
off  chap  (one  of  the  deferred-growth  class) 
who  has  not  a  very  strong  martial  spirit. 
They  are  certainly  a  warlike  lot.  And 
always  were. 

I  used  to  march,  in  Masonic  parades — or  at 
least  I  did  once.  It  was  in  Skowhegan.  I  have  told 
the  story  once  or  twice  to  listening  throngs  and  most  of 
the  throng  have  been  very  patriotic,  for  quite  a  spell 
thereafter.  If  I  could  get  it  into  a  four-minute  speech, 
I  think  it  would  sell  bonds  for  liberty. 

When  we  marched  in  Skowhegan  we  had  a  short 
hike — only  about  thirty  miles  or  so — on  a  medium 
warm  day,  say  about  132  degrees  in  the  shade.  We 
were  in  light  marching  order — two  luncheons,  one  din- 
ner, three  collations  and  the  contents  of  four  lemonade 
barrels  in  each  man.  Being  a  Sir  Knight,  I  wore  a 
chapeau  several  sizes  too  large  with  a  tendency  to  slip 
around  sidewise  and  present  a  front  view  like  Geo. 
Washington  crossing  the  Delaware.  Looked  at  from 
any  angle,  with  the  plume  on  the  starboard  side  and 
the  knightly  emblem  of  the  cross,  on  the  port,  I  was  a 
natty  sight.  I  also  wore  a  man-size  sword,  which  hung 
from  a  belt  that  was  made  for  a  large  person — the  out- 
fit being  borrowed.  The  sword  hung  down,  therefore, 
in  a  sort  of  discouraged  and  depressed  way,  and  the 
belt  not  having  the  proper  friction  against  my  abdo- 
men (and  I  not  having  any  abdomen)  it  likewise  slipped 
around  in  sympathy  with  my  chapeau  and  got  between 
my  legs — so  that  really  it  was  hard  to  tell  sometimes 
which  way  I  was  marching — hard  for  me — harder  for 
the  Eminent  Commander  who  as  much  as  said  that  I 
was  no  ornament  to  the  parade.  I  wanted  to  be  mili- 
tary and  Knightly  and  I  tried  to  be,  but  it  was  impos- 
sible, with  only  two  hands,  to  keep  my  hat  with  the 


6          JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

pointed  end  in  front  and  my  sword  at  my  side.  I  kept 
both  hands  going  and  both  legs  going ;  and  that  was  all 
any  one  Sir  Knight  could  be  expected  to  do. 

I  was  in  the  rear  rank.  There  were  four  of  us,  in 
the  rear  rank.  Two  Sir  Knights,  a  boy  on  a  bicycle  and 
a  man  selling  hot  Frankfurts.  It  was  very  dusty. 
After  we  passed  the  fifteenth  milepost,  the  bicycle  got 
a  hot-box  and  fell  out.  On  the  twentieth  mile,  the 
frankfurts  began  to  explode  with  the  heat  and  one  of 
them  struck  my  companion  on  the  baldric  and  he  fell 
out.  After  that  I  brought  up  in  the  rear  all  alone.  I 
never  saw  it  dustier.  I  hustled  along  working  hands 
and  feet  just  as  fast  as  lightning — now  straightening 
my  hat  and  now  pulling  my  sword  out  of  my  shoes  and 
leaping  over  it,  anon — I  will  repeat  that  word  anon- 
doing  my  best.  The  head  of  the  parade  was  ahead  of 
me — that  much  I  knew.  Occasionally,  I  heard  the  far- 
off  music  of  a  band.  Now  and  then  I  saw  the  form  of 
a  comrade,  his  plume  nodding  in  the  dust.  And  then, 
weary  of  adjusting  my  hat,  I  let  it  slide  where  it  would 
over  my  nose  and  walked  on,  now  in  the  darkness,  now 
in  the  light,  as  the  chapeau  slid. 

Along  about  six  o'clock  in  the  evening — as  it  seemed 
to  me,  I  met  a  man  and  asked  him  if  he  had  seen  a 
Masonic  parade.  He  said  he  understood  it  was  yes- 
terday. I  told  him  that  I  thought  he  was  mistaken 
and  would  he  inquire,  because  I  surely  started  today 
and  if  I  had  been  walking  all  night,  I  wanted  to  know 
it.  He  said  he  would  and  he  did,  and  returning,  said 
that  I  was  right.  It  was  still  today,  not  yesterday. 
He  brought  a  kind  woman  along  and  she  said  she  had 
seen  the  parade,  but  that  they  all  wore  their  hats  dif- 
ferent. My  sword  then  suddenly  became  tangled  in  my 
legs  as  I  endeavored  to  assume  a  military  appearance 
and  I  stumbled  visibly  as  I  passed  on  my  way  in  the 
parade,  leaving  the  man  and  woman  behind. 

I  caught  up  with  my  command  at  the  twenty-ninth 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES    7 

mile  by  getting  a  ride  on  a  grocery  cart — the  boy  driv- 
ing frantically.  I  fell  in  gracefully.  Falling  in  or 
over  was  the  best  thing  I  did.  I  was  received  with  en- 
thusiasm. My  appearance  was  surely  chic.  I  was 
carrying  my  sword  on  my  shoulder.  That  is  all  I  re- 
member until  we  were  dressing  up  on  the  right  in  front 
of  the  Skowhegan  Town  Hall  and  the  band  was  playing 
"Onward,  Christian  Soldiers." 

That  night  we  had  a  dance  in  the  Skowhegan  Town 
Hall  and  the  next  day  we  marched  all  day  between 
Waterville  and  Fair-field,  most  of  the  time  encircling 
graveyards.  Since  then  I  have  not  marched.  Today, 
I  sit  in  my  slippered  years,  thinking  of  my  experiences 
in  the  battle  line.  And  I  recall  that  it  is  not  always 
given  to  the  tallest  to  be  the  bravest,  nor  to  giants  to 
be  the  best  judges  of  pace.  Some  day,  in  the  wisdom 
of  a  progressive  age,  they  will  turn  the  lines  about; 
put  the  short  men  in  front  and  the  tall  men  in  the  rear 
to  march  in  the  dust  or  above  the  dust  as  God  wills.  If 
that  be  so,  I  know  one  thing,  that  we  of  the  erstwhile 
rear  rank,  attired  as  I  was  in  Skowhegan  approaching 
on  friend  or  foe,  either  freeze  the  marrow  in  the  bones 
of  the  latter  or  revive  the  drooping  spirits  of  that 
friendly  city  under  whose  peaceful  elms,  we  march  as 
"martial  figgers." 


ON  "A  TOAST  TO  THE  FLAG'* 

GIVE  you  today  a  Toast  to  the  Flag  of  our 
Country — the  Flag  that  has  set  the  whole 
world  free. 

I  give  you  this  Flag,  with  all  its  history. 
The  Flag  of  the  first  republic  on  earth  to 
make  the  People  superior  to  the  State  and  to 
declare  that  all  white  men  are  free  and  equal  under  the 
law.  The  first  Flag  to  cleanse  its  folds  from  the  dark 
stain  of  human  slavery,  in  the  blood  of  its  heroes.  The 
first  Flag  to  sail  the  seas,  free  and  unmolested.  The 
first  Flag  to  go  journeying  forth,  across  the  broad 
prairies  beyond  the  Mississippi ;  to  ripple  forth  in  all  its 
glory  from  the  lofty,  snow-clad  peaks  of  the  Rockies 
and  to  blazon  in  the  sunshine  of  the  great  Northwest 
along  the  trail  of  Fremont  and  Clark.  The  first  Flag 
to  float  over  enfranchised  Cuba  and  Hawaii,  redeemed. 
The  first  Flag  to  greet  the  silent  dawn  in  the  vast, 
interminable  wastes  of  the  North  Pole. 

I  give  you  this  Flag,  with  all  its  symbols.  Its  red, 
as  of  the  blood  of  heroes,  living  and  dead,  who  have 
loved  it  and  defended  it.  Its  blue,  as  of  the  sheen  of 
the  restless  seas,  that  encompass  and  protect  it.  Its 
white,  as  of  the  clear  day ;  the  union  of  all  of  the  colors 
of  the  spectrum ;  the  peaks  of  her  transcendent  moun- 
tains and  the  drifting  snows  of  her  prairie  wastes — 
Aye !  White — clear  thru.  The  Flag  that  reached  into 
the  Heavens ;  plucked  the  field  of  azure  and  the  stars 
for  symbols  and  then  set  the  American  Eagle  above  it, 
to  watch,  with  tireless  and  searching  eye,  that  not  a 
star  be  dimmed  or  desecrated. 

I  give  you  this  Flag,  with  all  its  hopes  and  prayers ; 
its  Faith  and  Purpose.  The  bright  Flag ;  the  cheerful 
Flag;  the  undying,  the  courageous  and  the  merciful 
Flag.  The  Flag,  that  rose  triumphant  from  the  sea, 
where  the  Lusitania  went  down.  The  Flag  that  flung 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES          9 

its  protecting  folds  over  the  widowed,  the  fatherless 
and  the  homeless  in  stricken  Belgium.  The  Flag 
that  would  not  yield  a  single  foot  in  the  terrible 
storm  of  St.  Mihiel,  but  ever  advanced!  The  Flag 
that  has  limned  the  face  of  the  pitying  Christ,  tri- 
umphant yet  sorrowful  in  the  work  of  Mercy  where 
the  wounded  and  the  dying  lay  in  long  rows  amid  the 
gathering  shadows  of  the  night.  The  Flag  that  the 
little  children  of  the  world  love  and  do  not  fear.  The 
Flag  that  spells  a  new-found  liberty  to  the  oppressed  of 
all  lands.  The  Flag  that  has  never  touched  the  ground 
or  been  set  beneath  the  feet  of  Tyrant  Hun  or  Un- 
speakable Turk. 

I  give  you,  Americans,  the  world  over — our  Flag! 
The  Flag  of  a  Free  People.  The  Flag  of  an  undying 
Union  of  sovereign  states  joined  together  in  the  yet 
greater  Sovereignty  of  a  Nation.  I  give  you  this  Flag, 
with  its  history,  its  achievement,  its  ideals !  The  Flag 
of  the  United  States  of  America. 


ON  "MAKE  YOUR  WIFE  A  PARTNER" 


ET  US  talk  in  a  common  and  possibly  practical 
way  about  using  woman's  brains  and  busi- 
ness acumen  more  commonly  than  is  now 
being  done. 

Most  wives  are  given  no  chance  to  show 
whether  they  have  any  business  sagacity  or 
not.  If  the  wife  asks  her  husband  what  is  troubling 
him  in  his  business  he  replies  that  if  he  told  her  she 
would  not  understand.  He  thinks  he  is  the  main-show 
and  the  side-shows  thrown  in.  He  probably  never 
gives  his  wife  a  cent  of  money  that  she  does  not  have  to 
beg  for  and  he  has  kept  her  so  that  she  does  not  know 
the  difference  between  a  promissory  note  and  a  bank- 


10        JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

check.  He  says  that  she  is  extravagant.  She  says  that 
she  has  to  grovel  so  for  a  cent,  that  she  will  be  darned 
if  she  won't  be  extravagant  when  she  can  get  the 
money.  Thus  many  a  marriage,  otherwise  happy, 
goes  to  the  bad. 

Women,  who  are  actually  doing  independent  mer- 
cantile or  industrial  business,  go  bankrupt  less  fre- 
quently, on  the  average,  than  do  men.  The  founder  of 
the  Vanderbilt  fortune  was  a  woman.  The  father  of 
the  old  Commodore  Vanderbilt,  Cornelius  by  name,  was 
a  poor  business  man.  He  lived  by  selling  produce  to 
the  people  of  the  city  of  New  York,  then  a  community 
of  about  80,000.  The  family  lived  on  Staten  Island. 
The  old  man  Vanderbilt  was  a  truck  peddler  and  a  small 
farmer.  And  he  failed  at  that.  The  farm  went  bank- 
rupt under  his  supervision  and  was  to  be  sold  for  debt. 

But  it  happened  that  the  wife  in  that  household  had 
financial  ability.  She  had  been  allowed  a  small  sum 
for  housekeeping  and  had  been  able  to  invest  a  little  of 
it  in  hens  and  she  had  kept  books.  So,  when  old  Van- 
derbilt came  miauling  around  and  saying  that  the  old 
home  must  be  sold,  Madame  Vanderbilt  said  to  him,  "0, 
I  don't  know."  And  dragging  down  the  family  sock, 
she  dug  into  it  and  extracted  $3,000  in  gold,  of  which 
her  husband  knew  nothing.  Out  of  this,  the  old  home 
was  saved — just  like  the  movies.  When  she  died  she 
left  $50,000  in  cash.  It  was  she  who  started  Cornelius 
in  the  way  of  making  money,  by  advancing  him  the 
capital  for  his  ferry  that  netted  him  $1,000  the  first 
year  and  laid  the  foundation  for  his  millions. 

And  yet  there  are  a  lot  of  pin-heads  who  think  a 
woman  cannot  possibly  know  how  to  do  business  in  a 
proper  way.  They  seem  to  think  that  God  cornered 
the  brains  in  man.  A  man's  wife  should  be  his  partner 
in  a  going  concern,  the  business  of  keeping  house  and 
saving  money  reasonably.  The  rounders  and  the  booz- 
ers and  the  proselyters  have  very  little  in  common  with 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES        11 

their  wives  and  want  less.  They  consider  that  what 
they  earn  is  theirs  and  a  part  of  what  the  wife  earns  is 
also  theirs  and  then  what  they  can  borrow,  both  owe. 
The  news-dispatches,  the  other  day,  relate  that  a  man 
over  in  New  Hampshire,  shot  his  wife  because  supper 
wasn't  ready.  There  is  more  excuse  for  that  than  there 
is  for  not  giving  a  woman  her  share  of  the  joint  earn- 
ings of  the  firm  of  "Wife  and  I."  In  the  case  of  the 
wife  who  did  not  get  supper,  she  was  a  quitter  on  the 
job.  She  should  not  be  killed — of  course — but  she 
ought  to  be  fined  her  week's  allowance. 

So — since  we  are  working  for  peace,  comfort, 
beauty,  joy,  human  betterments,  we  ought  to  make  use 
of  the  vast  amount  of  woman's  brains,  lying  idle 
around  the  house.  Give  her  a  chance  to  show  what  she 
can  do  in  running  the  finances  of  the  family.  Turn 
over  to  her  a  fair  amount  of  cash  per  week  and  make 
her  keep  books  on  it.  Let  her  have  her  own  bank-ac- 
count and  draw  her  own  checks  and  paddle  her  own 
financial  canoe — yea,  even  let  her  buy  her  own  hats 
and  gowns  and  pay  for  them.  She  can  do  it  if  you 
divide  fairly.  I  know  a  woman  who  runs  her  own 
house  on  a  fair  allowance  for  keeping  her  husband  as 
a  boarder  and  now  she  has  so  much  money  in  the  bank 
that  he  is  borrowing  it  at  fair  rate  of  interest.  It  is  a 
certainty,  that  if  your  wife  has  the  business-skill  as  so 
many  of  them  have — all  unsuspected — you  can  turn  in 
less  money  and  have  more  at  the  end  of  a  year  than  you 
would  think  possible — and  live  better,  too. 

Try  it !  Try  it !  It  will  end  all  your  bickering  over 
money. 


ON  "THE  BUTTERFLY  AND  THE  PIG" 


HE  BUTTERFLY  meandered  softly  thru  the 
air  and  settled  on  the  pig's  off  ear. 

There  you  were — the  utility  and  the  beauty 
of  life.    The  butterfly  was  all  one  with  the 
day — yellow  and  gold,  mingled  with  the  em- 
erald of  leaves,  blinking  in  amber  sunlight. 
The  philosopher  who  was  there  looking  over  the  side 
of  the  pen  asked  of  the  Bates  Senior  what  he  thought 
of  the  uses  of  each.    The  Senior  thought  that  each  was 
useful — to  the  limit. 

We  have  a  term  for  idle  people — gay  butterflies. 
We  have  a  term  for  supremely  selfish  people — pigs. 
People  to  whom  the  terms  are  applied  are  a  disgrace  to 
the  creatures  for  whom  they  are  misnamed. 

It  is  safe  to  say  that  the  Lord  knew  what  he  was 
about  when  He  made  the  butterfly  so  beautiful.  I 
rather  think  He  spread  himself  when  He  made  a  field- 
violet  or  painted  a  sky  of  deep  azure  in  a  June  day. 
But  I  am  not  so  sure  that  He  had  anything  to  do  about 
it,  when  He  made  a  man  or  woman  who  has  developed 
into  a  vain,  selfish,  overdressed  and  extravagant  dandy 
or  fashionable.  So,  too,  with  the  Pig  in  human  form. 
A  pig  is  a  very  useful  animal.  He  is  all  right  in  his 
way.  So  it  is  hard  on  the  butterfly  and  hard  on  the 
pig,  to  make  them  bear  the  name  of  thinking-beings 
who  have  merely  imitated  the  super-characteristics  of 
the  butterfly  and  the  pig  and  know  nothing  of  their 
aspirations  to  serve  the  world,  in  their  humble  way. 

The  mission  of  the  butterfly  is  plainly  to  exemplify 
beauty  while  it  is  performing  its  functionary  part  in 
the  natural  system — maintaining  some  balance  of  Na- 
ture. The  philosophies  mention  three  essentials — the 
Good,  the  Beautiful  and  the  True.  One  of  the  elements 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES        13 

for  which  the  World  war  was  fought  is  the  beautiful. 
We  went  into  it  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic,  at 
least,  for  "The  beauty  of  the  Lilies  that  were  born 
across  the  sea."  The  beauty  of  ideals,  the  beauty  of 
home  and  liberty — the  world  safe  for  Democracy  and 
a  Democracy  safe  for  the  world — a  beautiful  thing. 

The  human  butterfly  and  the  human  pig  are  not  do- 
ing much  for  this  ideal.  The  human  butterfly  rides 
around  in  his  limousine  with  a  horde  of  servants  to 
look  after  him ;  to  dress  him  and  to  undress  him ;  with 
every  thought  for  himself,  including  evasion  of  duty 
and  work. 

The  human  pig  keeps  his  nose  in  his  profiteering 
trough  and  grunts  whenever  anyone  asks  him  to  stop 
feeding  long  enough  to  look  at  the  world  as  it  is.  If 
you  ask  him  to  "give  until  it  hurts"  he  says  "No! 
Lemme  alone.  This  feeding  out  of  the  trough  is  a 
matter  of  business  with  me."  The  earth  may  rock  with 
thunder  of  the  cannon,  the  sound  of  his  eating  may  be 
punctuated  with  the  groans  of  the  dying  and  the  sob- 
bing of  wives  and  mothers  who  have  given  their  all — 
what's  that  to  him  ?  He  is  making  money  and  hanging 
onto  it.  He  will  lift  his  nose  and  enjoy  himself  when 
the  war  is  over.  Poor  thing — with  bristles  on  him. 
He  does  not  know  that  he  will  never  be  anything  but  a 
pig  until  he  stops  feeding.-  He  does  not  stop  to  think 
that  some  day  the  heirs  will  cut  him  up  into  sparerib ; 
smoke  him  for  bacon  and  salt  him  down  for  pork. 
Their  only  eulogy  upon  him  will  be  that  he  "cut  up 
profitably." 

Now  if  the  pig — the  human  pig,  I  mean,  will  only 
look  at  the  butterfly's  beauty  and,  as  it  flies  away  from 
his  off-ear,  try  to  emulate  the  subtle  suggestion  of 
God's  wonderful  message  of  a  spiritual  life  beyond  the 
material;  and  if  the  human  butterfly  will  look  at  the 
industrious  pig  eating  away  to  the  increase  of  the 
world's  material  welfare,  and  will  emulate  his  industry, 


14        JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

we  shall  have  that  middle  ground  of  human  betterment 
which  is  the  average  of  usefulness. 

All  of  which  is  the  purpose  of  this  allegory  of  the 
butterfly  that  meandered  to  the  pig's  ear  and  alighted 
there  and  flew  hence,  like  jewels  in  the  sunshine. 


ON  "DOGS-IN-GENERAL" 

HERE  is  a  dog,  over  in  my  neighborhood  in  Au- 
burn, which  is  a  "dog-in-general."  He  will  go 
with  anyone.  You  glance  at  him  as  you  pass 
by  and  give  him  any  kind  of  encouragement 
and  he  gets  up,  with  a  purposeful  air,  and, 
waving  his  tail,  trudges  along  with  you. 
There  is  something  about  him  that  one  cannot  help 
liking.  His  eye  has  a  look  like  that  of  a  small  boy 
chasing  a  circus  parade.  His  tail  seems  to  be  hung  on 
ball  bearings.  He  walks  cross-legged,  just  to  show  you 
that  he  has  accomplishments.  He  looks  foolish  and 
acts  foolish,  but  he  is  a  good  dog  in  general. 

Dogs,  in  general,  are  various.  But  a  "dog-in-gen- 
eral" is  a  dog  without  a  master.  He  is  a  tramp  dog. 
He  is  like  some  people,  no  special  attachments  to  any 
person  or  place,  but  a  friend  of  every  one.  You  see 
such  people.  They  are  what  the  French  call  "vaurien," 
good  for  nothing  except  that  they  are  kind,  loving  and 
wistful  and  see  far  ahead,  down  the  dusty  road  of  life, 
strange  things  that  they  want  to  see  and  for  which 
they  are  willing  to  trudge  along  with  you  to  fare  with 
you  in  all  adventure.  This  dog  that  I  know  in  our  town 
has  been  across  the  Atlantic  ocean  six  times  in  the  big 
liner,  chasing  soldiers  to  the  great  war.  Every  time 
he  saw  a  soldier  in  khaki,  he  got  up  and  took  his  burden 
of  travel  and  went  along  with  him.  He  had  a  soul 
attuned  to  the  mysteries  of  the  unknown.  He  was  not 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES        15 

built  for  the  fireside,  but  for  the  big  places  of  earth. 
He  wanted  to  enlist  but  they  did  not  take  bull-terriers. 
If  he  had  been  a  man  he  would  have  been  "over  there" 
in  1914. 

I  have  seen  these  dogs-in-general  that  went  around 
with  nobody  but  boys.  They  had  good  masters  who 
fed  them  and  liked  them  but  whom  they  would  quit  any 
time — especially  on  a  roving  summer  afternoon,  or 
some  subtle  day  in  June — to  go  with  any  boy.  The 
more  ragged  the  boy,  the  better  the  dog  liked  him! 
The  dog  would  prefer  to  go  along  by  the  side  of  some 
meandering  brook ;  to  lie  in  the  warm  sunshine ;  to  kick 
up  his  heels ;  to  bury  his  face  in  the  warm,  sweet  turf ; 
to  dig  for  the  woodchuck;  to  chase  sticks  and  stones 
thrown  in  the  swimmin'  hole — in  short  just  a  boy's  dog 
— never  a  man's  dog.  Any  human  nature  about  such  a 
dog?  Anything  in  an  "onery"  dog  to  remind  you  of 
some  folks  you  have  known  ?  That  dog  would  never  go 
to  war.  He  would  not  be  interested;  but  he  would 
make  a  good  boy-scout  dog.  Faithful — to  boys!  No 
name  for  his  devotion.  Did  you  ever  see  one  of  those 
big,  good-natured  chaps  in  your  old-time  country-town 
who  always  collected  all  of  the  boys?  Nature-loving 
men  who  liked  youth.  Well — the  boy-dog  is  a  cousin 
of  that  chap. 

I  don't  know  as  this  amounts  to  anything — but  I 
want  to  put  in,  as  the  moral  to  this  dog's  tale,  a  plea 
for  leniency  to  the  harmless  person-in-general.  There 
are  many  of  them,  whose  chief  weakness  is  inconstancy. 
If  constancy  be  left  out  of  a  dog  or  a  man,  what 
are  we  going  to  do  about  it?  They  are  wanderers — 
that's  all.  Drifting  here,  drifting  there,  doing  nothing 
much,  until  some  time  as  I  once  saw  in  the  case  of  a 
dog-in-general,  they  leap  into  the  sea  to  save  a  child, 
they  spring  into  the  breach  to  stop  a  flood,  they  come 
along  when  the  house  is  burning  and  leap  into  the 
flames  to  rescue  a  life.  And  then  away  they  go — seek- 


16        JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

ing  new  adventures,  forgetting  their  own  heroisms. 
Into  this  war  at  last  have  gone  many  of  them.  Wan- 
derers who  have  been  here  and  there  over  the  face  of 
the  earth  looking  for  the  Great  Adventure !  They  have 
found  it — over  there — in  the  trenches,  brave,  careless, 
happy-go-lucky  souls  face  to  the  foe,  eyes  bright,  lips 
wreathed  in  smiles — just  as  tho  thru  the  veil  that  was 
rent  by  the  searching  bullet,  they  saw  brighter  and  yet 
brighter  dusty  highways,  stretching  on  and  on  forever- 
more,  in  which  it  was  ever  summer,  with  the  birds 
a-caroling  and  the  soft  winds  lifting  the  damp  ringlets 
about  their  brows. 


ON  'THE  SACRIFICE  OF  THE  ROSE" 

AM  LEANING  over  the  railing  of  the  garden 
looking  at  the  June  rose.  My  neighbor  who 
lost  an  arm  in  the  Civil  War,  Spottsylvania, 
is  there  ahead  of  me  and  seems  deep  in 
thought.  He  is  over  seventy  years  old — but 
not  so  old  as  the  rose-bush.  "What  do  you 
think  of  it  ?  '  I  ask.  "I  don't  know,"  is  the  reply.  "But 
God  did  not  make  it  for  nothing,  neither  the  rose  nor 
the  briar.  There's  something  behind  it." 

So  here  was  a  man  who,  almost  sixty  years  ago, 
shed  his  brother-man's  blood  in  war,  standing  silent  in 
adoration  of  a  June  rose.  Maybe,  after  all,  it  came 
very  near  to  typifying  some  of  the  things  for  which  he 
fought — -peace  in  the  garden  for  the  rose  to  bloom,  the 
dooryard  to  the  plain  man's  home  undisturbed,  the  trig 
wife  in  the  doorway,  the  silence  of  the  night  in  which 
the  perfume  of  the  flowers  may  pass  and  repass  his  pil- 
low unmixed  with  poison  gases. 

"I  wonder  why,"  said  I  to  the  old  soldier,  "I  wonder 
why  God  made  the  rose,  if  He  made  it  for  something 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES        17 

and  not  for  nothing?  Why  did  He  bother  to  make 
beautiful  things  ?  Why  did  He  not  fill  the  world  with 
meat  and  drink,  iron  and  copper,  lumber  and  brick,  ex- 
clusively? Why  did  He  not  make  mountains  of  dyna- 
mite and  smokeless  powder  and  have  all  His  trees  bear 
bayonets  and  rifles !  Why  did  He  make  fields  of  green 
grass  when  He  might  have  made  them  of  cement  so  as 
to  move  great  guns  the  more  quickly,  that  other  men 
might  be  blown  to  atoms  the  more  expeditiously  ?  We 
do  not  need  buttercups  and  daisies!  We  do  not  re- 
quire golden  sunsets  and  the  aurora.  All  that  we  re- 
quire is  the  superman ;  the  food  for  him  and  the  weap- 
ons in  his  grasp." 

"The  meek  shall  inherit  the  earth,"  was  the  reply. 
And  then  he  shouldered  his  cane  and  walked  away. 

And  so  I  came  back  to  thinking  about  the  reasons 
for  beauty  and  perfume  and  kindness.  And  I  asked 
myself  if  the  secret  of  the  world  is  sacrifice.  Out  of 
this  war,  what  big  thing  abides?  Is  it  not  sacrifice? 
Are  we  not  all  learning  what  it  means  to  think  of  oth- 
ers and  serve  others?  Does  not  Duty  point  its  finger 
at  you  out  of  the  storm  of  nations  and  speak  to  you 
saying,  "Sacrifice."  If  the  secret  of  the  world  is  sacri- 
fice (and  by  "secret  of  the  world"  I  mean  the  secret  of 
evolution  spiritually  and  materially) ,  then  beauty  takes 
its  place  and  meekness  does  inherit.  The  story  of  birth 
is  sacrifice  and  suffering.  Travail  is  a  part  of  all  devel- 
opment. The  plant  itself  gives  of  itself  in  reproduc- 
tion and  many  of  them  die  in  so  doing.  The  mother 
gives  of  her  own  life  to  the  child.  Have  you  read  that 
majestic  paragraph  out  of  Charles  Darwin,  the  sum- 
mary of  his  theories  on  evolution  and  the  survival  of 
the  fittest?  The  mossy  bank  that  Darwin  brings  into 
his  picture,  is  peopled  with  almost  infinite  variety  of 
animal,  vegetable,  insect  and  other  life.  But  every 
living  organism  is  sacrificing  -to  perpetuate  its  kind. 
It  is  building  a  world  thru  death  for  the  world's  sake. 


18        JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

If  this  be  the  plan,  then  every  living  organism  has  its 
place  and  man  is  among  them — dying  for  the  advance- 
ment of  the  world  as  a  whole. 

And  who  shall  inherit?  It  is  the  meek,  who,  by 
giving  here  and  there ;  who,  by  yielding  to  the  necessi- 
ties; who,  by  sacrifice  and  by  rebirth,  spiritually  and 
materially  shall  perpetuate  his  kind.  The  first  cave- 
man fought.  He  was  strong.  He  passed  on — con- 
quered by  two  cavemen  who  combined,  each  sacrificing 
something  that  the  other  might  live.  Tribe  united 
with  tribe  and  by  concessions  became  strong.  The 
state  was  born.  And  so  on.  But  never  was  it  the 
superman.  It  was  ever  the  union  of  men  and  women 
each  sacrificing,  each  working  for  others. 

And  it  was  for  this  that  God  made  the  rose  and 
many  other  lovely  emblems  of  beauty.  He  might  have 
made  a  handsomer  thing  than  the  rose  but  probably 
did  not  see  the  need  of  it.  It  blooms  just  as  fairly  in 
the  waste  places  as  in  the  garden;  just  as  lovely  in  the 
garden  of  the  poor  as  in  the  garden  of  the  rich.  It 
gives  itself  a  sacrifice  to  that  ideal  of  beauty  and  of 
sweetness  which  is  the  type  of  Heaven  on  earth.  We 
are  going  thru  grievous  times.  But  we  must  not  lose 
hold  of  the  eternal  truth  "that  our  light  affliction, 
which  is  but  for  a  moment,  worketh  for  us  a  far  more 
exceeding  and  eternal  weight  of  glory;  while  we  look 
not  at  the  things  which  are  seen  but  at  the  things 
which  are  not  seen ;  for  the  things  which  are  seen  are 
temporal ;  but  the  things  that  are  not  seen  are  eternal." 

Back  of  the  Rose  is  God's  eternal  edict  of  victory 
thru  sacrifice.  The  meek  shall  inherit  the  earth. 


ON  "WOMEN'S  BACK  HAIR" 

VE  was  the  original  Jane — with  her  golden  hair 
a-hanging  down  her  back.  I  have  seen  sev- 
eral pictures  of  Eve — surreptitiously — and 
she  had  lovely  hair,  always  arranged  with 
seeming  carelessness  but  with  as  much  re- 
gard for  decency  as  was  possible  under  the 
circumstances.  I  have  always  wondered  what  the  pho- 
tographers would  have  done  in  the  Garden  of  Eden,  if 
Eve  had  persisted  in  doing  her  hair  up  high. 

A  good  many  people  still  think  that  a  woman's  hair 
looks  well,  flowing  down  around  her  waist.  But  women 
seem  to  find  it  mussy  and,  as  a  rule,  are  inclined  to 
differ  with  Eve  as  to  coiffure.  If  you  should  look  over 
any  of  the  "Histories  of  Fashions"  in  the  different 
ages,  you  would  find  a  great  many  peculiar  structural 
complications  in  head-dresses.  And  the  more  we  look 
at  them,  the  more  we  are  inclined  to  believe  that  the 
simpler  they  are,  the  better. 

It  is  no  business  of  mine — of  course — how  women 
"do  up"  their  back  hair,  so  long  as  they  do  it  up  in  the 
boudoir ;  but  when  they  come  to  the  office  and  keep  do- 
ing it  up  all  day,  it  wearies  the  flesh.  Some  of  the 
girls  nowadays  peer  out  between  their  coiffure  like  a 
Spitz  dog  thru  his  matted  locks.  They  have  succeeded 
in  training  some  of  their  hair  to  curl  out  around  their 
ears  and  about  six  inches  past  their  noses  and  it  takes 
a  good  deal  of  time  to  keep  it  there.  They  have  to  stop 
between  your  impassioned  declarations,  "Your  letter  of 
the  15th  inst.  rec'd  and  in  reply  will  state,"  to  curl  that 
spit-lock  around  their  fingers;  look  around  and  see  if 
their  abbreviated  skirts  have  gone  to  ballooning  since 
last  heard  from,  and  then,  settling  themselves  again  in 
the  chair,  will  calmly  go  on  to  write:  "Your  letter  of 
the  15th  incident  received."  In  general,  the  more  hair 
and  the  farther  front  it  protrudes  and  the  more  it  is 


20        JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

marcelled — the  less  efficiency  and  the  poorer  spelling. 

Venus  de  Milo  was  another  rather  good  looking  girl. 
Next  to  Eve  whom  we  admire  for  maternal  reasons,  she 
was  perhaps  as  good  looking  as  they  make.  Well — 
Venus  did  not  seemingly  waste  any  time  on  her  hair. 
It  was  drawn  back  in  a  neat  wave ;  pugged  up  and  there 
it  stayed.  She  said  to  Jupiter  one  day,  "Jupe,  believe 
me,  I  am  one  of  those  women  who  NEVER  touch  their 
hair,  from  morning  to  night."  And  Jupiter  said,  "Veen, 
you  suit  me  from  the  ground  up."  Venus  has  been  rea- 
sonably successful.  She  has  had  stars  named  for  her ; 
she  has  been  put  up  at  a  good  many  clubs,  in  marble. 
Why,  then,  cannot  the  modern  woman  follow  her  ex- 
ample and  find  some  sort  of  static  condition  of  hair. 
Why  do  they  move  the  terminal-station  of  the  hair, 
otherwise  the  "pug"  from  side  to  side,  from  back  to 
front  and  literally  "go  over  the  top"  with  it  every  three 
months.  You  and  I  recall  when  it  hung  low  on  the 
horizon  over  the  coat-collar ;  then  it  leaped  to  the  bridge 
of  the  nose;  then  it  hung  over  the  left  ear  and  then 
over  the  right.  Then  it  was  obliterated  altogether  and 
made  into  an  impressionistic  picture  of  a  hay-field  after 
the  grass  was  cut.  Then  it  was  Psychied  or  Clytied  or 
otherwise  "tied"  and  stuck  out  several  feet  due  west 
into  the  horizon.  Then  it  was  puffed  out  at  the  side 
until  a  girl,  coming  head  on,  looked  like  a  yacht  with 
her  spinnaker  and  ballooner  set,  coming  down  before 
the  wind.  Then  it  developed  nets  and  rats  and  looked 
like  a  bag  of  meal  on  the  noble  front  of  loveliness. 
Then  it  cultivated  a  suggestion  of  wilful  disorder,  a 
sort  of  zephyr-blown  carelessness,  like  a  ball  of  yarn, 
both  ends  of  which  have  been  lost  in  the  knitting.  And 
now — marvel  of  marvels,  it  is  hiding  the  ears  and  will 
next  be  curled  around  the  lip  into  an  imitation  mus- 
tache and  around  the  chin  into  feminine  whiskers,  a  la 
spinach. 

Hear  me  again,  0  fellow-countryman !   I  do  not  care 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES        21 

a  damb  (revised  spelling)  about  it,  but  the  other  day  I 
saw  a  young  woman  with  fine,  well-groomed  hair, 
drawn  neatly  back  and  not  a  single,  up-to-date  chorus 
girl,  Mrs.  V.  Castle  flummididdle  about  it  and  I  was 
happy  all  day  long.  And  I  went  home  and  took  down 
the  picture  of  my  grandmother  with  her  hair  worn  at 
eighty  exactly  as  it  was  worn  at  twenty,  and  I  said  to 
it,  "Grandmother !  I  understand  now.  The  reason  you 
accomplished  so  much  in  your  life  is  because  you  did 
not  have  to  devote  twenty-five  per  cent  of  your  time  to 
studying  some  new  place  to  put  that  dear  old  pug." 


ON  "THE  SHRINES  OF  HOME" 

OMEWHERE  in  every  shrine  of  motherhood  is 
a  tiny  pair  of  baby's  first  boots — crumpled 
little  things,  wet  with  a  mother's  kisses. 

After  that,  boys'  boots  especially  do  not 
get  much  of  a  show  as  mementoes.  They 
come  and  go — the  little  affairs — clomping 
and  making  much  weary  noise,  but  yet  greatly  missed 
after  they  are  silent,  the  boy  in  bed — or  perhaps 
slipped  out  of  his  mother's  arms  to  lie  long  and  still  in 
the  trenches  under  the  poppy-fields  of  France. 

What  if  they  should  come  back  and  stand  at  atten- 
tion along  the  old,  yellow-painted  kitchen  floor  back  of 
the  stove  again  as  they  stood  in  days  of  yore,  all  in  a 
row.  Perhaps  it  would  make  the  tears  come  and  per- 
haps they  would  often  be  chased  away  by  smiles.  And 
the  girls'  boots,  too !  Good  girls,  wayward  girls,  sweet 
girls,  girls  with  flying  hair,  girls  with  sunshine  in  their 
eyes.  Girls  gone !  Girls  that  may  come  back ! 

Here  is  a  pair  of  old-fashioned  copper-toed,  red- 
topped  boots  with  an  inscription  on  the  top — "For  a 
Good  Boy !"  Those  were  the  boots  that  father  took  in 


22        JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

hand  forty  years  ago  when  he  took  his  first-born  son  to 
the  shoe-store  for  a  first  pair  of  kip  winter  boots.  Dad 
was  about  as  proud  of  them  as  the  boy  was.  He 
wanted  to  know  of  the  dealer  if  they  were  "real  kip." 
"Yessir!  Warranted."  Those  boots  came  home  and 
were  worn  with  self-consciousness.  Men  on  the  street 
would  see  them  and  suggest  "Seems  to  me  I  smell 
leather."  A  boy  would  stand  around  waiting  for  com- 
ments on  his  new  boots.  Cute  little  boots,  were  they 
not — especially  at  night  as  soaked  with  the  snow  and 
wet  by  the  mud  they  stood  with  little  up-turned  toes, 
back  cf  the  old  kitchen  stove. 

You  can  see  the  little  chap  going  about  in  the  morn- 
ing with  his  fingers  in  the  straps  trying  to  get  the 
shrunken  things  on.  He  kicks  on  the  base-boards  and 
sweats  at  the  straps.  And  at  the  night-time,  what  a 
ceremonial  pulling  off  the  boots — bootjacks  and  small 
boys  assisting.  It  was  some  fun  to  back  up  to  dad, 
take  his  number  ten  between  your  legs,  grab  hold  of 
heel  and  toe  and  have  him  propel  you  forward  with  a 
foot  on  the  dome  of  your  little  trousers.  And  the  other 
ceremonial  was  getting  out  the  tallow  and  the  lamp- 
black and  greasing  them  so  that  they  would  shine  and 
resist  the  wet.  We  were  very  dressy  when  we  had 
half  an  inch  of  mutton  tallow  on  top  of  the  old  kip 
boots. 

Do  we  live  much  outside  of  the  children,  after  all  ? 
Something  tender,  something  indescribably  sweet  and 
hopeful  invests  the  soul  as  we  ponder  on  the  life  that 
comes  and  the  life  that  passes  on  thru  childhood  to 
eternal  youth,  elsewhere.  The  little  feet  that  ran  at 
play,  that  climbed  into  the  lap  of  parenthood,  that 
stumbled  often  on  the  way,  that  went  yet  more  and 
more  sedately  as  the  years  came  and  went  and  that, 
perchance,  have  now  turned  with  cadence  of  music  and 
waving  of  flags  to  the  call  of  high  duty  into  the  way 
that  leads  away  from  the  village  streets  into  great 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES        23 

duty  and  perhaps  the  great  sacrifice — what  wonder 
that  somehow  they  mean  more  to  us  than  anything 
else,  on  the  home-altars ! 

Small  wonder,  then,  that  baby's  first  boots  should 
be  the  material  memento  in  so  many  homes.  In  these 
hours,  to  take  them  out  and  recreate  the  dimpled  little 
thing  that  snuggled  under  the  heart;  that  had  such 
fair  blue  eyes  and  such  flaxen  curls ;  that  grew  up  at 
last  and  went  away  forever,  is  to  live  over  again  the 
elysium  of  young  life  in  the  shrine  of  the  family.  And 
it  is  this  vision  that  leads  us  to  take  oath  that  by  sacri- 
fice and  by  giving  and  by  fighting  we  shall  forever 
maintain  the  right  to  have  these  fair  flowers  of  our 
lives  come  to  full  beauty  and  fruition;  in  short,  that 
government  of  the  people,  by  the  people  and  for  the 
people,  shall  not  perish  from  the  earth. 


ON  "MAINE  AND  MIDSUMMER" 

0  LIE  on  a  haycock  and  watch  the  cloud-wrack 
in  the  sky ;  to  follow  the  gulls  as,  lazily,  they 
wheel  above;  to  watch  the  blue  sea  heave 
afar;  to  feel  the  perfume  of  each  dawn  and 
catch  the  healing  breath  of  every  sunset;  to 
live  as  fully  and  happily  as  one  may  live  in 
these  days  of  blood — this  in  Maine,  in  midsummer. 

What  other  land  approaches  it  in  beauty!  No 
tropic  country  with  eternal  sunshine;  no  land  of  roses 
all  the  year  around;  no  valley  of  the  "blest"  compares 
with  this  rugged  land  of  hills  and  mountains,  lakes  and 
running  brooks,  in  its  midsummer  garb.  Incompar- 
able Maine ! 

This  week  we  have  felt,  for  the  first  time,  the  sense 
of  the  midsummer  noon.  The  year  has  run  thru  its 
eleventh  hour  and  now  sleeps  in  the  silence  and  the 


24        JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

heat  of  that  hour  when,  like  the  old-fashioned  Maine 
village,  everything  is  closed,  the  store-keepers  gone 
home,  the  streets  quiet.  The  summer  haze  lies  upon 
the  fields;  the  buttercups  and  the  daisies  yellow  and 
whiten  the  rolling  hills;  the  music  of  the  mowing- 
machine  comes  up  from  the  intervales;  the  yellow- 
birds  flutter  thru  the  roadside  trees ;  the  wild  rose  nods 
and  kisses  its  petals  to  you  along  the  hedges;  the 
brooks  run  noisily  beneath  the  old  bridges ;  the  gardens 
lift  their  blossoms  as  if  to  say  "plenty ;"  the  blue  moun- 
tains smile  as  if  beckoning  you  on ;  the  hills  lift  you  up 
and  up  until  they  reveal  the  glimpses  of  the  sea,  the 
estuaries  and  the  bays,  that  run  landward  from  the 
sea;  and  everywhere,  cooling  in  the  breeze,  comes  the 
perfume  of  the  sweet  grass  and  the  new-mown  hay 
upon  your  senses. 

Midsummer!  Already  the  first  glimpses  of  the 
golden-rod  in  the  fields!  Already  that  lazy  sense  of 
ripening-warmth,  of  Nature  putting  in  her  work.  The 
heat  in  town ;  the  buzzing  automobiles  along  the  coun- 
try-highways with  number-plates  bearing  the  names 
of  all  the  forty-eight  states  in  the  Union  as  they  come 
and  go ;  the  thronging  crowds  on  trains  running  double- 
sections;  the  congestion  at  ferries  where  there  are 
crossings  of  rivers  more  peaceful  than  the  Marne — all 
these  tell  of  the  peak  of  the  year,  when  Nature  stays  a 
while  and  waits,  delaying  the  chirp  of  the  cricket  and 
the  first  touch  of  that  diviner-yet  period  of  sweet  drop- 
ping away  to  winter  that  we  call  Autumn. 

Who  would  live  elsewhere — once  having  lived  in 
Maine?  Who  would  exchange  this  midsummer,  this 
autumn;  this  drowsy,  dreamy  age  of  life  in  Maine  for 
any  other,  when  in  the  distance,  he  sees  as  we  who  love 
it  so  well,  ever  do  see,  the  coming  of  the  first  snows ;  the 
Thanksgiving  season  crisp  and  cool,  the  first  snows 
tinkling  against  the  windows;  the  incomparable  con- 
trast of  winter!  Which  do  we  love  the  better!  We 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES        25 

can  hardly  say.  If  midsummer  with  its  elysian  days 
is  sweet,  so,  too,  is  the  clear,  cold,  pure,  healthy,  whole- 
some winter  season,  when  the  snows  lie  white  along 
the  country  roads ;  when  in  the  blazing  noon,  it  is  sil- 
ver and  in  the  light  of  the  winter  moon  it  is  golden, 
even  to  the  end  of  the  world ! 

And  so — let  us  forever  tell  the  truth  about  our 
Maine.  Let  us  praise  its  beauties,  as  they  deserve  to 
be  praised,  and  do  it  everywhere  we  go.  Too  many  res- 
idents of  Maine  speak  with  a  half -apologetic  tone,  in 
mentioning  the  fact  that  they  reside  here.  Its  history 
is  the  oldest  and  the  most  aristocratic  of  the  states. 
It  was  settled  before  Plymouth.  It  has  been  the  bat- 
tle-ground of  civilization  while  newer  states  were  in 
the  wilderness.  It  has  peopled  the  Nation  with  brains 
and  brawn.  It  has  done  its  part  loyally  in  every  con- 
flict for  freedom,  truth,  nationalism  and  ideals.  And 
here  it  is — fairer  than  ever,  with  its  forests  deep  and 
mystic,  with  its  country-side  like  a  garden,  with  its 
sea-coast  cupped  with  harbors  and  with  its  rivers  rich 
in  power. 

Apologize !  Instead  we  should  hold  ourselves  as  of 
the  elect  of  the  Lord;  favored  in  opportunity;  guard- 
ians of  a  heritage  that  is  priceless.  And  all  this,  from 
the  noon  of  a  midsummer  day,  that  is  not  midsummer 
madness. 


ON  "GOING  TO  THE  DENTIST" 

LL  I  have  to  say  about  it  is  this.  Some  things 
have  to  be  borne.  You  may  be  permitted  to 
die  peacefully,  or  otherwise,  in  your  bed  with 
your  vermiform  appendix  still  in  your  little 
inside,  but,  alas!  a  man  cannot  die  of  the 
toothache.  Would  that  he  could,  but  cases 
are  rare.  Death  rarely  visits  with  its  balm,  the  person 
who  has  the  toothache  or  the  person  who  is  sea-sick. 

If  people  could  die  with  the  toothache,  the  dentist 
would  have  a  harder  time.  As  it  is,  rather  than  suffer 
the  ills  we  have,  we  fly  to  others  that  we  know  not  of. 
In  olden  times,  the  sign  outside  of  the  dentist's  shop 
was  a  huge  tooth  hanging  to  an  iron  crane  over  the 
narrow  and  soiled  stairway  leading  to  his  temple  of 
pain.  The  old-time  dentist  was  never  in  view  when 
you  went  in.  He  was  not  surrounded  by  marble  and 
ivory  and  running  water  and  nickel-plated  anaesthet- 
ics. Not  so !  He  was  in  the  back  shop  making  teeth ; 
and  if  he  saw  you  come  in,  he  would  wipe  the  pumice- 
stone  from  his  hands  onto  the  seat  of  his  trousers  and 
pry  open  your  mouth  before  you  could  say  Jack  Robin- 
son. That  swinging  tooth  represented  the  exact  size 
of  the  tooth  that  he  pulled.  Every  time,  without  fail, 
when  as  a  boy,  I  parted  with  a  tooth,  it  measured  at 
least  eighteen  inches  wide  by  three  feet  and  a  half  long. 
Treating  the  subject  subjectively,  there  are  some 
very  good  thoughts  to  be  promulgated  about  the  rela- 
tion of  the  individual  to  the  dentist — especially  the  old- 
fashioned  tooth-puller.  G.  H.  Derby,  a  humorist  of 
national  repute  in  his  day,  told  a  story  about  Dr.  Tush- 
worth,  a  dentist,  that  is  but  little  known.  The  Doctor 
tackled  a  tooth  once  that  he  could  not  pull.  The  patient 
kicked  some  about  the  abortive  effort.  Doc  Tushworth 
felt  that  a  patient  had  no  right  to  complain  about  little 
things  like  that — his  business  was  to  yank  the  molar. 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES        27 

So  he  invented  a  machine  that  worked  by  levers  and 
exerted  an  enormous  pull.  When  he  pried  open  the 
patient's  mouth  and  put  in  the  active  end  of  the  ma- 
chine and  exerted  a  few  hundred  pounds  of  pressure, 
he  noticed  that  the  patient's  right  foot  flew  up  in  the 
air.  He  didn't  understand  the  reason  but  he  did 
not  stop  to  make  investigation.  He  added  a  ton  or 
two  more  pull  on  the  machine  and  the  man's  head 
pulled  right  smack  off !  at  his  collar  button.  Of  course 
"doc"  got  the  tooth  even  if  he  lost  the  man. 

An  investigation  followed  and  they  dissected  the 
remains  and  found  that,  as  we  often  feel  about  it  our- 
selves, the  man's  tooth  ran  down  into  his  body  all  of 
the  way,  pursuing  a  path  down  his  right  leg  and  having 
two  prongs  that  were  clinched  over  on  the  sole  of  the 
foot.  That's  why  the  right  foot  flew  up  when  the  doc 
began  to  pull.  It  saved  the  doc's  reputation  and  got 
him  off  with  a  charge  of  justifiable  homicide.  The  doc 
subsequently  pulled  on  an  old  lady's  tooth  with  this 
machine  and  yanked  out  her  whole  skeleton.  He  took 
her  home  in  a  pillow  case.  It  happened  that  she  did 
not  die,  so  the  doc  was  again  lucky.  And  what  was 
better,  she  lived  seven  years,  known  as  the  "India  rub- 
ber lady"  and  was  completely  cured  of  rheumatism  of 
the  bones — having  no  bones  to  ache. 

These  are  extreme  cases  from  the  view-point  of  the 
outsider,  but  perfectly  credible  to  the  man  who  in  the 
golden  days  sat  down  and  permitted  the  dentist  to  grab 
hold  of  a  tooth  and  yank  it  in  cold  blood.  Of  course 
things  are  better  now.  One  can  almost  go  prancing 
into  the  door  of  the  dentist ;  but  in  the  old  days  while 
he  went  prancing  all  right,  he  did  not  always  go  in.  I 
have  pranced  miles  on  the  dead  run  to  the  dentist's  and 
just  as  I  turned  the  door-knob — pretty  softly,  too — the 
toothache  has  stopped  in  contemplation  of  the  future. 
You  can  work  that  several  times  with  some  teeth. 
They  are  as  intelligent  as  a  dog  that  expects  a  licking. 


28        JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

I  do  not  know  as  there  is  any  moral  about  this  talk, 
but  I  am  sure  that  it  is  not  immoral  and  that  is  a  good 
deal.  It  is  pleasant  to  know,  however,  that  science  is 
doing  so  much  for  us.  It  is  taking  our  arms  and  legs 
off  painlessly,  removing  our  teeth  with  soothing  music 
of  the  ether  and  the  phonograph.  Some  day  it  may  do 
as  much  for  our  sins  and  iniquities.  St.  Peter  will 
hardly  know  us. 


ON  "RESPONSIBILITY  OF  A  PERFECT  BABY" 

T  IS  sometimes  hard  to  tell  about  the  Perfect 
Baby.  Often  it  looks  like  its  father  and  often 
like  its  mother  and  sometimes  it  looks  like 
Grandmother  Jones  and  frequently  it  is  the 
perfect  picture  of  Grandfather  Pinkham,  and 
then  again  it  may  trace  back  and  leap  over 
into  some  other  family  of  kin,  and  look  like  Uncle 
Hiram  Beebe — male  or  female,  the  responsibility  for 
the  physical  appearance  of  a  perfect  baby  cannot  be 
definitely  located.  I  have  seen  a  baby  that  looked  like 
some  remote  grandsire — whiskers,  hair  and  funny 
look  around  the  eyes. 

After  the  relatives  have  located  the  lineaments  in 
remote  ancestry,  the  responsibility  for  the  care  of 
the  child  falls  on  a  family  council  consisting  chiefly 
of  the  mother's  mother  who  is  supposed  to  be  very 
learned  on  the  subject;  the  father's  mother  who 
knows  so  much  about  children  that  it  fairly  hurts 
her;  the  old  maid  aunt  who  knows  a  lot,  but  who 
blushes  to  say  it ;  the  nurse  who  is  never  any  good,  and 
on  the  father,  incidentally,  who  runs  errands  and  inves- 
tigates the  different  kinds  of  nursing  bottle,  with  a 
later  preference  for  the  automatic  kind  that  get  up  in 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES        29 

the  night  themselves  and  heat  the  infant's  pabulum. 

There  is  no  greater  rush  of  business  known  to  any 
household  than  the  accession  of  about  nine  pounds  of 
first  child  into  a  peaceful  married  life.  It  beats  win- 
ning the  war  or  hurrying  up  the  ship-building  program 
or  making  12,000  aeroplanes  in  six  months.  A  young 
father  averages  to  be  on  the  dead  run  to  and  from  an 
apothecary  shop  eighteen  hours  out  of  the  twenty-four 
for  the  first  six  months  of  the  worry  between  wind  and 
water  of  child.  You  can  see  them  darting  thru  the 
crowds  anxiously  looking  for  an  opening  and  a  drug- 
gist. They  carry  their  pocketbooks  open  all  of  the 
time  in  their  hands.  If  suddenly  aroused  while  nap- 
ping on  a  street-car,  they  look  at  you  blankly  and  say : 
"Yes,  I  asked  for  a  dozen  rubber-nipples."  You  talk 
about  the  responsibility  of  a  perfect  baby — it  is  largely 
on  the  perfect  father. 

Of  course  I  am  not  going  to  say  that  after  the  nurse 
goes  there  is  not  some  responsibility  resting  on  the 
perfect  mother.  She  has,  of  course,  a  very  superior 
article  of  baby  to  take  care  of,  in  the  first  place.  It  is 
not  at  all  like  other  babies— NOT  AT  ALL !  It  is  far 
lovelier  and  far  more  nearly  perfect  and  far  more 
precious  and  far  more  intelligent.  Hence  her  respon- 
sibility far  exceeds  that  of  any  other  mother  who  has 
just  common-flesh  babies.  I  doubt  if  a  greater  effort 
was  made  even  in  clearing  out  the  St.  Mihiel  salient 
than  in  a  young  mother's  first  essay,  unassisted,  at 
bathing  a  damp  baby  in  her  lap.  The  responsibility  is 
enormous.  If  baby  should  suddenly  leap  out  of  her 
lap!  Later  in  life — say  her  fourth  or  fifth  baby — 
why  she  can  bathe  it ;  read  Lady  Audley's  secret ;  knit 
socks  and  chew  gum,  all  at  the  same  time,  and  if  baby 
leaps — why  she  catches  the  perfect  thing  on  the  first 
bounce  and  never  misses  a  stitch  or  loses  a  word  or 
chews  a  chew,  less. 

Of  course  the  responsibility  of  a  perfectly  perfect 


30        JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

baby  is  greater  than  the  responsibility  for  a  freckled, 
red-headed,  colicky,  yawning,  criss-cross,  sour-smelling 
baby.  Of  course  it  is.  But  who  ever  had  one  of  the 
latter  kind?  Huh?  Speak  up!  The  responsibility 
for  the  care  of  a  perfect  baby  is  greater  than  the 
responsibility  for  a  perfect  husband — by  a  good  deal. 
I  doubt  if  there  is  a  young  mother  who  ever  regards 
her  husband  with  the  same  reverence  after  the  first 
baby  sets  up  its  dominion.  He  is  distinctly  and  un- 
avoidably a  second  fiddle.  He  is  often  in  the  way. 
The  responsibility  of  the  universe  seems  to  have  sud- 
denly changed.  It  is  no  longer  on  "Husband  and 
Woodrow  Wilson;"  it  is  on  the  perfectly  precious  and 
lovely  child. 

It  is  sometimes  said  that  when  we  go  hence  we  shall 
re-appear  as  little  children  in  the  celestial  pastures. 
We  shall  then  know  how  to  be  perfect  without  discrim- 
ination, without  responsibility.  I  wonder  if  it  will  be 
finer  than  responsible  motherhood  and  perfect  earthly 
infancy ! 


ON  "THE  GOING  AND  THE  COMING" 

HE  tides  of  earth  are  not  more  persistent  than 
the  tides  of  life  and  nature.  There  is  a  going 
and  a  coming;  a  flux  and  a  reflux  in  all  the 
world,  from  nebulae  to  atom,  from  life  of  man 
to  life  of  star. 

Progress  is  rhythmic.  As  the  music  of 
the  violin  swells  thru  the  silence,  so  the  music  of  the 
spheres  touches  the  cold  and  silent  spaces  of  the  uni- 
verse, all  swinging  to  immutable  law,  balanced  as  finely 
as  the  needle  on  the  fulcrum.  God  is  master  musician, 
establishing  the  harmonies,  celestial  and  terrestrial. 
We  live  in  cycles,  individually,  socially  in  civiliza- 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES   31 

tion,  in  national  existence.  There  can  be  no  retrogres- 
sion. What  seems  such,  is  the  backward  swing  of  the 
curve  preparatory  to  an  advance.  The  sea  comes  and 
goes ;  but  it  always  advances  upon  the  coast-line.  The 
seasons  come  and  go,  but  the  earth  itself  approaches 
nearer  and  nearer  with  each  springtime  to  the  purpose 
for  which  it  was  ordained.  There  have  been  dark  ages 
in  the  world's  existence,  in  which  it  has  seemed  as  tho 
the  end  had  come  to  all  advancement,  only  to  break  in 
fuller  glory  upon  some  renaissance  of  art  or  learning. 

This  is  what  cheers  me  in  this  war.  It  seemed  as 
tho  it  were  death  to  art,  to  music,  to  learning,  to  faith. 
We  thought  it,  many  of  us,  in  hours  of  doubt  a  few 
years  ago.  Today,  we  see  new  ideals,  new  hopes,  new 
faiths,  new  conceptions  of  duty  and  opportunity.  Out 
of  it  are  to  come  new  liberties,  new  inventions,  new 
conservations,  new  commerce,  new  arts,  new  friend- 
ships and  from  it  will  pass  away  many  of  the  fancied 
bonds  between  peoples,  kindred  in  ideals  but  separated 
by  oceans  and  strangers  by  history  and  traditions. 

It  is  perhaps  a  thin  subject  for  your  consideration, 
but  there  is  an  analogy  in  life.  We  learn  by  troubles ; 
we  grow  by  griefs ;  we  develop  by  trials.  There  is  no 
life  that  has  not  had  its  fluxes  and  its  refluxes ;  its  go- 
ings and  its  comings  of  hope  and  happiness,  of  welfare 
and  distress.  We  watch  the  passing  of  beloved  friends. 
The  loneliness  of  life  pervades  every  surrounding. 
But  the  new  impulse  is  not  often  wanting  to  take  up 
the  burdens  and  carry  them  along  faithfully.  The  sor- 
row ennobles.  The  grief  purifies.  Great  artists  have 
been  developed  by  suffering.  Insight  into  hidden 
things  comes  by  sorrows.  The  Man  of  Nazareth  was 
such.  His  deeps  only  emphasized  the  heights  to  which 
He  attained. 

This  is  a  comforting  thought  if  applied  broadly  and 
happily.  The  mother  who  mourns  a  son,  "over  there," 
carries  a  new  conception  of  life  along  with  her.  What 


32        JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

she  has  lost  is  partly  compensated  for  by  what  she  has 
gained  thru  new  Faith,  pride  in  her  son's  sacrifice;  joy 
that  she  gave  and  gave  willingly.  I  do  not  know  any 
leaven,  working  more  surely  for  national  ennoblement, 
than  the  prayers  in  little  homes  all  over  the  land  for 
repose  of  the  souls  of  them  who  lie  low  in  the  trenches 
on  the  Western  front.  The  widow's  weeds,  the  moth- 
er's tears  are  to  be  the  symbols  of  a  new  nation  con- 
ceived in  pain  as  is  the  lot  of  motherhood. 

And  the  substance  is :  do  not  complain  at  things  too 
bitterly  and  never  despair !  There  is  good  in  all  chast- 
ening. Nothing  breaks  a  man  or  woman  but  failure 
to  keep  pace  with  the  return  swing  of  the  cycle. 
Watch  for  it  and  be  ready.  It  will  take  you  on  as  truly 
as  the  world  swings  on  by  rhythmic  law  thru  all  the 
precession  of  equinox  along  the  pathway  of  the  eternal 
stars. 


ON  "THE  OLD  TIME  DISTRICT  SCHOOL" 

TAUGHT  school  once — but  only  once.  My 
school  was  far  from  the  madding  crowd  in 
the  midst  of  a  snow-infested  region  of  Maine. 
It  was  a  land  of  plenty — such  as  it  was.  One 
could  use  his  knife  without  comment  for  the 
purpose  of  transferring  nourishment  to  his 
system. 

I  was  a  sophomore  in  college,  sixteen  years  old; 
weight  102,  flat;  size  immaterial.  On  the  morning  of 
my  arrival  at  the  schoolhouse  I  found  twenty-three 
pupils  gathered  around  the  old  box-stove  in  the  middle 
of  the  room.  Most  of  the  big  boys  had  side-whiskers 
or  mustaches.  The  girls  were  matronly.  One  of 
them  was  a  red-cheeked  Hebe  who  weighed  about  192. 
They  ranged  in  height  from  about  eight  feet  tall  down 
to  pupilettes  in  pantalettes. 

An   interstate-tariff   schedule  of   differentials   on 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES         33 

freight,  is  like  an  A.  B.  C.  to  the  job  of  laying  out  a 
running-schedule  for  an  ungraded  district  country 
school.  Every  scholar  has  a  different  kind  of  book  and 
wants  to  begin  at  a  different  place.  I  found  an  average 
of  three  classes  to  each  pupil,  which  made  sixty-nine 
classes  for  the  day.  Allowing  an  hour  for  recess,  de- 
votional exercises — which  consisted  in  lugging  in  the 
wood  and  lugging  out  the  teacher — this  left  me  2  14-69 
minutes  per  recitation.  This  seemed  short,  even  to  me. 
It  seemed  to  require  condensation  and  intensive  teach- 
ing. I  did  both.  By  cultivation  of  the  latter  I  came  to 
a  point  where  I  could  hold  the  spelling  book  in  one 
hand ;  point  out  the  geography  lesson  on  the  map  with 
the  other  hand ;  poke  wood  into  the  old  box-stove  with 
the  other  hand;  hold  the  youngest  scholar  on  my  lap 
with  the  other  hand,  and  wipe  its  nose,  frequently,  with 
the  other  hand. 

That  youngest  scholar  was  a  puzzle  to  me.  It  was 
five  weeks  before  I  knew  whether  it  was  a  boy  or  a  girl. 
I  was  very  modest  and  did  not  like  to  ask  leading  ques- 
tions. It  was  a  boy.  He  came  to  school  every  morn- 
ing with  his  countenance  eclipsed  by  a  hang-over  from 
his  breakfast.  I  made  the  mistake  on  the  first  morn- 
ing of  opening  the  business  of  the  day,  by  washing  the 
child's  face.  Every  morning  in  our  prayers,  after  the 
invocation  "give  us  THIS  DAY  our  daily  bread,"  I  men- 
tally added  "and  molasses."  Then  I  took  the  child  to 
the  snow-bank  and  got  it.  But  it  kept  on  daily,  nay, 
hourly,  exuding  bread  and  molasses. 

I  can  see  that  old  district  school  now  as  I  close  my 
eyes ;  and,  in  memory,  still  hear  the  droning  of  its  reci- 
tations. The  sun  still  shines  for  me  in  thru  the  tiny 
old  window  panes  on  the  long  stove  funnel,  down  on 
those  battered  little  desks,  and  gleams  on  the  silver 
snow-banks  out-of-doors.  In  every  snow-storm,  I  hear 
the  whine  of  the  winds  and  the  ticking  of  the  sleet 
around  the  corners  of  the  little  building,  as  it  did  in  the 


34        JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

long  years  ago.  And  all  of  the  memories  are  pleasant. 
Those  moonlit  nights  around  the  neighborhood;  those 
lyceums  where  old  subjects  w,ere  fiercely  debated  with 
fervid  eloquence ;  those  evening-readings  when  first  the 
neighborhood  became  acquainted  with  Dickens  and 
Thackeray.  The  eager  thirst  for  learning  that  those 
boys  and  girls  soon  came  to  have;  the  comradeship 
that  we  engendered ;  the  Latin  lessons  after  school,  the 
efforts  to  prepare  for  college  and  for  normal  school! 
All  these  form  a  chapter  in  memory  that  nothing  will 
efface. 

Some  good,  kind  providence  presided  over  the  old- 
fashioned  district  school  as  an  institution.  It  may 
have  been  in  the  native  ability  of  the  old  New  England 
stock,  its  brains  and  its  ambitions.  But  I  like  to  think 
that  looking  in  at  the  window  was  the  god  of  kindly 
future  protecting  the  republic  and  preparing  its  boys 
and  girls  for  higher  missions ;  for  out  of  its  doors  have 
gone  good  blood,  fine  intellectuality  and  high  purpose 
for  the  development  of  a  nation,  whose  fruits  are  seen 
in  the  ideals  of  this  hour  along  the  Western  front. 
And  every  now  and  then  I  meet  some  of  my  old  schol- 
ars of  my  only  school,  either  a  legislator,  or  a  teacher, 
or  a  lawyer,  or  a  prosperous  farmer,  and  to  each  of 
them  I  say,  "I  don't  know  where  you  got  it ;  you  didn't 
learn  it  from  me." 


ON  "THE  NORTHWEST  WIND" 

UDDENLY  the  wind  had  shifted.  It  began  to 
blow  in  the  northern  windows,  cool  in  the 
night.  It  rattled  the  halliards  of  the  flag 
pole  and  swept  things  off  the  table. 

It  had  been  a  long  spell  of  fog  at  the  sea- 
shore and  the  fog-signals  had  been  droning 
for  two  days  and  the  submarine  patrol  boats  had  been 
thrashing  along  in  the  obscurity — mists  wreathing 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES        35 

'the   spruces   and   blotting   out  the   sun   and   stars. 

"The  Northwest  wind  will  settle  all  that,"  said  one 
to  himself  in  perfect  confidence ;  "for  nothing  else  is  so 
sure  to  drive  away  the  clouds  and  fogs."  And  sure 
enough,  dawn  saw  the  finest  scene  that  nature  has  to 
offer  at  the  seashore — the  perfect  day.  To  see  such  a 
day  is  to  live  all  over  many  dreams  and  find  hope  for 
new  ones.  Islands  and  opposite  shores  have  moved  up 
more  than  half  way.  There  is  so  little  obscuration  in 
the  atmosphere  that  it  is  like  distance  in  Colorado 
mountains  or  in  the  dry  deserts.  A  mile  is  like  a 
hundred  yards.  You  see  new  things  over  the  way. 
From  Squirrel  Island,  for  instance,  Monhegan,  thirty 
miles  away  or  Seguin  over  by  the  Kennebec,  seem  to  be 
close  enough  to  make  possible  new  hand-clasps  with 
Mystery.  We  see  people  on  what  seemed  hitherto  un- 
inhabited islands  out  to  sea.  The  Northwest  wind 
brings  us  closer  together. 

The  breaking  day  with  a  Northwest  wind,  means 
setting  forth  of  harbor-stayed  fleets — fishermen,  old 
lumbering  coasters,  noisy  motor-craft,  pleasure  yachts, 
and  coastwise  steamers.  The  sails  come  out  shining 
like  silver  in  the  sea.  Under  foot  of  their  streaming 
bows  rolls  a  liquid  floor  of  ultramarine,  flashing  with 
white  tops.  Everywhere  the  harbor  is  simply  azure 
like  the  sky,  with  shining  waves  white-capped.  It 
sparkles  and  seems  alive.  It  is  snappy  and  makes  you 
think  of  the  bending  sail  and  the  lee-shore.  Every  old 
coaster  acts  like  a  racer.  She  trims  her  sails  nattily 
and  tries  to  work  a  bit  more  speed  out  of  the  old  boat. 
You  hear  them  singing  at  the  hauls.  The  day's  in  the 
dawn,  the  dawn's  at  seven  and  all's  well  with  the  world. 
It  is  good  to  be  alive — heaven  has  not  forgotten  earth 
but  has  opened  a  crack  of  the  door  and  let  a  little  of  its 
radiance  down  on  earth  and  sea.  And  the  clouds  are 
fine  and  the  sky  is  high  and  the  trees  are  thrashing  in 
pure  fun  of  wrestling  with  the  keen  old  northwest  sum- 
mer breeze. 


36        JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

We  have  fogs  in  the  soul  and  fogs  in  the  intellect 
and  fogs  in  the  home,  as  well  as  at  the  sea-shore. 
Shift  the  wind.  Make  it  a  northwester.  You  can  do 
it.  If  the  soul  is  sluggish,  find  with  some  spiritual, 
kindred  soul  the  new  breath  that  shifts  the  current  of 
your  being.  If  your  mind  is  fogged,  give  it  a  breath 
of  the  west  wind  by  a  change  of  venue.  If  there  are 
fogs  in  the  home ! — Simple  enough !  Get  the  folks  up 
into  the  hills ;  let  them  see  new  lands ;  let  them  feel  the 
touch  of  the  eternal  morning ;  let  them  forget  the  sor- 
did cares  and,  in  recreation  and  rest,  even  but  for  a 
day,  restore  the  sunshine  to  the  home;  set  the  waves 
of  love  and  companionship  into  motion ;  make  a  sparkle 
to  the  floor  of  life  and  clear  the  atmosphere  of  mists 
and  misunderstanding,  so  that  you  can  see  more  clear- 
ly, than  before,  the  lovelight  in  each  other's  eyes.  The 
weary  wife,  the  petulant  children,  the  tired  husband! 
Fogs !  fogs !  all  around  the  home !  Let  in  the  northwest 
wind.  Change  the  currents  of  thought  and  feeling. 
Love  is  the  last  thing  to  pass  in  the  mist — its  eyes 
shining  bright.  It  will  be  the  first  thing  to  return, 
when  the  mists  have  blown  away  in  the  northwest 
wind. 

And  then  all  your  harbored  fleets  can  set  out  with 
a  following  breeze.  New  cargoes,  of  all  sorts,  ambi- 
tions, faiths,  hopes,  courage,  consideration,  forgive- 
ness, sacrifice,  patience,  peace,  and  all  with  a  song  on 
the  lips  just  as  the  sailors  sing  of  a  clear  morning  out 
of  port  bound  for  new  havens  beyond  the  headlands. 


ON  "THOUGHTS  ON  THE  HEN" 

AVING  spent  a  portion  of  the  day  recently 
waiting  for  the  arrival  of  a  dumfingle  for  the 
carborundum  of  a  Ford  car,  held  in  meticu- 
lous suspension  in  a  farmer's  dooryard,  I  had 
an  opportunity  to  study  the  way  of  the  hen ; 
and  she  is  in  the  way  most  of  the  time. 
The  hen  seems  to  me  to  lack  purpose.  She  has 
neither  the  definite  nor  determined  aim  that  she  should 
have,  to  be  made  into  a  text.  The  rooster  has  a  rather 
better  aim  than  the  hen,  but  even  the  rooster  lacks  the 
art  of  going  in  a  straight  line.  He  side-steps  and 
scratches  gravel  and  sidles  up  and  shows  off  a  whole  lot 
— like  some  people — before  he  arrives.  The  hen 
makes  no  pretence  of  knowing  where  she  is  going ;  and 
hence  is  less  subtle.  She  is  plainly  without  steering 
apparatus,  either  mental  or  moral. 

There  was  a  very  handsome  hen  over  beyond  our 
weary  Ford,  which  traveled  around  in  a  semi-circle.  If 
this  hen  started  for  the  water-bucket  over  by  the  barn, 
she  took  a  course  directly  away  from  the  bucket  and 
finally  arrived  there  by  running  across  the  road  to  es- 
cape two  automobiles  that  almost  ran  over  her.  She 
then  returned  to  the  yard,  reached  the  water  by  a  trip 
around  the  barn,  when  all  the  while  the  straight  course 
would  have  been  devoid  of  danger  and  obviously  nearer. 
Some  folks  are  like  that. 

I  noticed  that  a  hen  looks  up  to  the  sky  every  time 
it  takes  a  drink.  It  is  fair  to  assume  that  she  is  thank- 
ing God  for  the  drink.  After  the  prohibition  amend- 
ment is  passed  by  the  nation,  it  is  fair  to  assume  also 
that  men  will  be  doing  the  same.  If  one  hen  decides  to 
tackle  the  water-bucket,  all  of  the  rest  of  the  hens  feel 
convivial.  You  do  nojt  often  see  one  hen,  drinking 
alone.  Some  folks  are  also  like  that.  Hens  are  taken 
with  sudden  and,  to  me,  inexplicable  attacks  of  panic. 


38        JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

For  instance,  waves  of  unrest  pass  thru  a  flock  of  hens. 
I  lay  there  on  the  ground,  very  quietly.  No  hawk  was 
in  the  sky;  no  hawkers  on  the  premises.  But  every 
now  and  then  the  hens  would  huddle ;  a  sort  of  tremor 
would  pass  thru  them.  They  would  cackle  and  scream 
and  run  about  and  then  quiet  would  be  resumed. 
What  was  it?  Can  it  be  true  that  souls  of  politicians 
are  embodied  in  hens  by  the  transmigration  of  the 
same, — the  souls  I  mean,  not  the  hens  ? 

I  have  a  notion  that  there  exist  whole-souls  and 
half-portion  souls  and  souls  in  side-dishes  and  yet 
smaller — like  twenty-cent  ice-creams  and  fifteen-cent- 
ers and  cones — for  five  cents  each.  Hens  have  small 
souls,  I  fully  believe.  Yet  they  do  seem  to  me  to  have 
human  suggestion  about  them.  They  act  a  good  deal 
like  people,  but  in  a  lesser  way.  For  instance,  I  have 
noticed  that  hens  strut  when  looked  at  intently — just 
like  a  girl  with  new  silk  hose.  They  preen  and  cluck 
and  plume  themselves  in  society.  Cats  do  the  same. 
A  cat  is  almost  as  vain  as  a  rooster  with  a  red  comb. 
There  was  one  rooster  in  the  yard  that  did  not  do  a 
thing  but  prance  around  and  lift  his  legs  high  and 
make  a  noise.  He  was  prouder  than  a  new  Major  in 
his  first  uniform. 

Hens  lack  will-power  except  in  laying  eggs.  I  know 
nothing  as  a  matter  of  fact  about  the  chief  function  of 
a  hen,  but  in  practical  things  such  as  scratching  a  hole 
in  the  ground,  the  hen  has  neither  will  to  do,  nor  power 
to  persevere.  She  quits  and  runs  hence.  Her  cackle 
is  a  desultory  thing.  It  has  certain  musical  notes  in 
the  alto,  but  all  of  them  go  to  show  that  they  are  mere- 
ly the  residue  of  inattention  to  what  was  once  a  noble 
organ.  Indeed  the  name  "hen"  is  derived  from 
"canere,"  to  sing.  She  was  once  a  singer — he,  a  chant- 
i-cleer ;  notice  the  first  syllable  "chant." 

The  Moral  of  this  is  simple:  no  bird  or  beast  or 
human  that  runs  around  in  circles  and  refuses  to  lay 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES        39 

eggs  or  do  work  or  give  himself  over  to  useful  employ- 
ment except  when  eggs,  et  cetera,  are  high,  can  expect 
anything  else  but  deterioration !  He  is  bound  to  degen- 
eracy. He  should  go  hens. 


ON  "FURNACES" 

HEN  I  get  to  thinking  about  hell  philosophi- 
cally, and  want  to  feel  my  subject,  I  go  down 
cellar  and  look  at  the  furnace.  With  me  it 
is  a  matter  of  temperament  rather  than  tem- 
perature. The  furnace  looks  like  hell — or 
the  way  I  have  fancied  hell  might  look — and 
it  is  dark  and  suggestive  of  coal-bills.  And  it  squats 
on  the  floor,  saturnine,  mysterious. 

Furnaces  were  invented  a  good  many  years  ago,  if 
we  may  believe  the  Old  Testament.  Three  men  walked 
thru  a  fiery  furnace,  according  to  Daniel,  and  came 
out  unscathed.  Any  one  could  have  done  that  in  my 
furnace  last  winter,  with  the  kind  of  coal  the  Fuel  Ad- 
ministration was  doling  out  and  the  local  coal-dealers 
were  hilariously  selling  at  $12  a  ton.  The  three  men 
were  Jews — Shadrach,  Meshach  and  Abednego.  They 
probably  knew  that  the  coal  was  the  heatless  variety, 
dug  especially  for  the  year  of  the  Great  War,  1918, 
Anno  Domino.  You  could  not  fool  one  of  those  lads 
on  fuel.  And  the  Lord  was  on  their  side  and  against 
Nebuchadnezzar  and  his  furnace. 

This  is  the  season  of  the  year  when  manufacturers 
advertise  furnaces.  Every  kind  that  is  advertised  cuts 
the  coal  bill  of  any  other  kind  of  a  furnace  square  in 
two.  Take  a  pencil  and  paper  and  you  can  figure  how, 
by  buying  two  furnaces,  you  can  get  along  without  any 
coal,  and  by  buying  four  furnaces,  you  can  lay  up 
enough  coal  to  be  able  to  start  in  the  coal-business  and 


40        JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

thus  get  to  be  a  millionaire  in  a  single  winter.  Then 
there  is  a  sort  of  furnace,  in  the  advertisements,  that 
runs  itself.  It  requires  no  shaking  down ;  it  starts  itself 
in  the  morning  with  a  push-button  and  a  thermo- 
stat. You  can  even  start  it  by  having  an  alarm  clock 
by  the  head  of  your  bed  which  will  not  only  start  the 
furnace  but  will  also  pull  the  bed  clothes  up  around  you 
a  little  closer  and  give  the  baby  his  bottle  at  the  same 
time.  One  of  these  super-furnaces  will  also  carry  out 
the  ashes ;  shovel  off  the  walks ;  take  in  the  milk ;  boil 
your  morning  egg ;  and  talk  back  to  your  wife.  It  will 
not  pay  for  the  coal ;  but  as  it  does  not  burn  any  coal, 
you  do  well  not  to  ask  the  impossible  of  a  mere  mechan- 
ical contrivance.  There  are  limits  even  to  the  capacity 
of  a  super-furnace.  If  it  will  saw  and  split  the  wood ; 
lug  it  in ;  build  its  own  fires ;  heat  the  wash-water ;  keep 
the  house  at  seventy,  or  rather  sixty-eight  (conf .  Local 
Fuel  Adm'r)  and  guarantee  that  the  cook  won't  quit, 
it  is  doing  enough. 

But  most  of  us  have  to  get  along  with  the  old-fash- 
ioned, common  variety  of  furnace.  It  enjoys  work 
best  in  warm  weather.  Give  it  a  nice,  warm,  summer- 
like  winter  day  and  it  will  produce  heat  enough  to 
warm  the  State  Capitol  at  Augusta.  You  can't  keep  it 
back.  If  you  decline  to  give  it  coal,  it  goes  out  and 
gets  it.  But  on  a  heavy  day  of  cold,  it  will  not  work 
unless  on  time-and-a-half  and  double-time  holidays  and 
it  could  not  heat  a  spare  bunk  in  a  ten-cent  lodging 
house. 

To  return  to  my  first  thought — if  any.  It  seems 
odd  that  from  the  beginning  of  time,  they  have  de- 
picted the  future  state  of  punishment  as  a  spell  of 
eternal  tending  of  furnaces.  Jonathan  Edwards,  who 
had  some  gifts,  as  a  pessimist,  regarding  the  comforts 
of  hell,  generally  suggested  that  it  would  be  a  long  job 
of  shoveling. 

There  is  only  one  thing,  however,  that  the  eminent 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES        41 

colonial  preacher  left  out.  He  might  have  added  "and 
you  will  have  to  pay  for  your  own  coal."  If  he  had 
said  that — well,  there  would  have  been  no  original  sin 
in  the  U.  S.  A. 


ON  "HATS,  HERE  AND  THERE" 

FTER  Adam  and  Eve  were  driven  out  of  the 
Garden  of  Eden  and  Eve  took  to  dressmak- 
ing, nothing  much  was  doing  in  millinery  un- 
til the  time  of  Sodom  and  Gomorrah.  The 
first  hatters  and  milliners  set  up  in  Sodom 
and  then  moved  over  the  bridge  to  Gomorrah. 
Now,  everyone  wears  a  hat.  And  Lot's  wife  is  as 
fresh  as  ever  in  a  new  bunnit. 

One  time  I  sold  a  hat  to  an  old-clothes  man  at  col- 
lege. After  I  came  up  here  to  work,  I  saw  the  hat  in 
a  second-hand  store  run  by  S.  Record.  It  was  mixed 
up  with  a  lot  of  old  army  pistols.  I  bought  it  and  have 
it  now.  It  is  of  no  value  except  to  inspire  memories. 
We  used  to  have  hats  that  lasted,  when  we  were  boys. 
A  boy's  hat  went  thru  the  whole  family,  just  as  dad's 
trousers  did,  and  at  the  close  they  seemed  as  strong, 
if  not  stronger,  than  when  they  started  out  on  their 
career  of  usefulness.  You  have  seen  them — old-timer 
— those  boyhood  hats  that  hung  in  the  schoolhouse 
entry — changed  by  the  sun,  warped  by  the  rains,  but 
undying  yet.  They  might  fade  but  they  never  sur- 
rendered. Mixed  in  with  the  girl's  sunbonnet — old- 
fashioned  Shaker  bonnets — they  looked  like  yaller  dogs 
troubled  with  the  mange.  Now  and  then  they  became 
elongated  to  peaks.  Set  one  of  these  jauntily  on  the 
head  of  a  red-headed,  freckled-faced  boy,  wearing  a 


42        JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

gingham  shirt  and  huckabuck  trousers,  and  you  had  a 
thing  of  beauty  as  unlike  the  modern  boy  as  a  Packard 
automobile  differs  from  father's  carryall. 

The  old-fashioned  boy  never  had  a  complete  outfit. 
If  he  got  a  suit  of  clothes  from  the  village  tailoress,  he 
did  not  get  a  pair  of  new  boots.  Or  if,  by  dire  neces- 
sity, he  got  a  pair  of  new  boots  he  did  not  get  a  new 
hat.  Never!  He  simply  wore  the  new  fixings  and 
punctuated  the  awful  condition  of  his  hat.  I  have 
gone  bareheaded  to  church  many  a  time,  flourishing 
my  old  hat  with  an  aspect  of  hilarity  that  I  did  not  feel, 
and  banging  the  fence-posts  with  it,  trying  to  wear  it 
out.  But  it  could  not  be  done.  Those  old-time  lids 
were  "genuwine."  Even  an  old-fashioned  straw  hat 
could  be  run  thru  the  mowing  machine  and  chewed  up 
by  the  bull  and  yet  be  "good  enough  to  wear  again." 

No  person  should  buy  a  hat  for  another  person. 
And  yet  no  woman  should  buy  her  own  hat.  This 
seems  foolish  and  contradictory — yet  it  works  out  that 
way.  In  my  opinion,  a  War  Board  should  be  appointed 
to  buy  women's  hats.  No  woman  should  invest  in  a 
hat  until  it  has  been  passed  on  by  the  Shipping  Board, 
the  Fuel  Administrator  and  the  Army  and  Navy; 
looked  over  by  Josephus  Daniels  and  tried  on  by  Wood- 
row  Wilson.  What  we  want  in  women's  hats  is  to 
make  the  hat  fit  the  woman.  Up  to  now  women  have 
been  buying  hats  because  they  were  inherently  "love- 
ly," "darling,"  "wonderful,"  as  they  sit  there  on  a  pole, 
in  the  milliner's  window.  The  woman  never  asks  "Does 
the  hat  look  well  on  me?"  All  she  asks  for  is  thirty 
dollars'  worth  of  raiment,  more  gorgeous  than  the 
lilies,  more  brilliant  than  the  sunset.  Personally,  she 
may  have  a  face  like  a  fried  egg — the  hat's  the  thing. 
Homely  women  ought  to  buy  plain  hats — and  vice 
versa.  Mother  used  to  buy  hats — hold  there! — did 
she?  No!  She  used  to  make  them.  Poor  dear!  I 
can  see  her  now,  digging  each  spring  among  her  treas- 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES        43 

ures  for  a  spring  bunnit.  One  plume  a  year  and  lo !  a 
new  bonnet  for  the  dear  old  head.  And  bonnet  strings 
tied  under  the  chin.  Guess  they  never  will  get  a  style 
to  beat  it.  When  she  went  to  church  of  a  Sunday  in 
May,  in  her  new  creation,  and  Dad  had  dug  out  his  old 
tall  hat  and  brushed  it  with  a  currycomb  and  donned 
his  tricot  coat  and  broadcloth  vest  and  pants  and  put 
on  a  blue  necktie — well,  well,  well,  Oh  Boy,  and  then 
plus. 

The  general  conception  of  Heaven  seems  to  be  that 
we  do  not  wear  hats  there.  They  will  interfere  with 
flying  and  the  action  of  the  wings.  I  shall  be  sorry. 
I  don't  know  what  I  shall  do  to  take  up  my  spare  time — 
no  hunting  for  my  hat.  But,  you  see,  it  would  be  im- 
possible to  have  hats  in  heaven — much  as  the  ladies 
will  miss  them.  Fancy  Joan  of  Arc  in  a  sailor  hat ;  or 
Socrates  in  a  plug  hat;  or  George  Washington  in  a 
plaid  cap.  So,  we  must  do  all  our  "hatting"  here. 
For  the  elect,  no  lids  in  the  next  world ;  and  a  cast-iron 
one  for  the  wicked  with  light  asbestos  for  Sundays. 
So  let  us  indulge  ourselves  here !  Off  with  the  lid ! 


ON  "PLAYING  THE  GAME" 

OME  on — be  a  good  scout!  It  costs  nothing; 
pays  dividends;  eases  up  on  the  friction  of 
the  world  and  fits  you  for  heaven. 

It  is  hard  for  some  people  to  be  pleasant. 
We  have  to  pity  them.  They  may  have  rea- 
sons for  not  being  gentle  and  kindly  and 
happy.  They  may  have  corns  on  their  livers ;  or  warts 
on  their  spleens.  Perhaps  they  make  more  bile  than 
their  circulatory  organs  can  deliver.  But  there  never 
was  one  of  them  who  could  not,  if  he  really  wanted  to 
do  so,  become  a  tractable  and  decent  companion. 
Many  of  them  succeed  in  going  along  in  an  apparently 
joyous  way,  when  they  feel  otherwise. 

All  honor  to  these  heroes.  It  is  the  chap  who  has 
been  soured  by  some  personal  calamity  and  who  goes 
into  a  hermitage  of  the  soul  and  senses;  who  crawls 
into  an  iron-clad  tank  and  spouts  flame  at  all  creation, 
that  we  feel  ought  to  be  reached.  He  ought  to  know 
that  nothing  can  have  happened  to  him  that  has  not 
happened  to  others  in  former  days.  Listen  to  what 
Euripides  wrote,  over  two  thousand  years  ago: 
"Naught  else  to  us  hath  yet  been  dealt,  but  that  which 
daily,  men  have  felt."  Suppose  that  a  great  calamity 
befell  you.  It  is  not  necessary  to  be  specific,  in  illus- 
tration, but  let  us  say  that  it  is  something  real,  vital ! 
Consider!  It  is  just  what  has  happened  to  others. 
Be  a  good  scout !  Take  it  like  a  man ! 

Here  is  a  true  story  about  a  remarkable  man  who 
died  recently  in  Auburn.  He  was  a  master-mind.  His 
position  in  our  social,  intellectual  and  political  order 
was  high.  He  had  the  keenest,  straightest-thinking 
brain  that  could  possibly  be  given  to  man.  He  was  at 
the  apex  of  a  lifetime  of  hard  work — just  when  he  had 
a  right  to  enjoy  the  rewards  of  patient  study,  the 
accumulated  lore  of  law  and  practice.  He  went  to  a 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES        45 

specialist  one  day  to  find  out  what  was  the  cause  of  his 
illness.  He  received  his  death-warrant.  He  had  a 
hopeless  case  of  cancer.  He  might  live  a  year,  or  two. 
He  came  home  and  went  to  work. 

And  then  ensued  a  peculiar  case  of  loving  fortitude. 
He  kept  hi.  hopelessness  from  his  family.  Never  a 
word  said  he.  A  smile  on  his  face,  a  laugh  on  his  lips, 
a  patient  going  about  his  work  as  long  as  strength 
lasted  and  then  a  final  illness  in  which  he  professed  a 
persistent  hope  of  recovery  to  the  end.  And  that  is 
not  all.  Certain  members  of  his  family  knew  the  sit- 
uation also.  Nothing  was  said  about  it.  The  wife 
was  the  only  one  who  was  unaware  of  the  fatality  of 
the  disease  and  two  years  of  such  comfort  as  hope 
could  give  her  were  the  reward  of  this  family — each 
keeping  the  supposed  secret  from  the  other — the  son 
believing  that  the  father  was  uninformed  of  the  nature 
of  the  disease — the  father  believing  that  the  son  did 
not  know.  And  so  this  group,  maintaining  an  outward 
cheer,  went  on  to  the  end.  You  cannot  beat  it  in  all  of 
the  stories  of  heroism. 

So  I  say  to  others — whatever  happens,  you  can 
always  play  the  game  to  the  end.  You  can  always  be 
considerate.  Nothing  has  happened  to  you  that  hath 
not  happened  to  others.  Play  the  game!  Tune  up! 
Be  a  "good  scout." 


ON  "THE  POET  AND  THE  APPLE  BLOSSOM" 

ATURE  is  rather  inclined  to  boast  a  bit  in  the 
spring — don't  you  think  so?  Some  of  the 
ugliest  things  delight  in  dressing  up  so  that 
they  are  infinitely  beautiful,  as  if  to  say: 
"We  could  be  beautiful  always,  but  we  prefer 
to  be  useful."  Beauty  is  religion  in  nature. 


About  every  animate  thing  in  the  vegetable  world  goes 
to  church  at  least  once  in  a  year — a  sort  of  Easter  con- 
fessional. 

I  am  thinking  now  about  something  that  I  consider 
the  loveliest  thing  in  the  world.  Fifty  weeks  in  the 
year  it  is  scraggy,  rough,  sprawling,  gnarled  and  alto- 
gether homely.  Two  weeks  or  so  in  the  year  it  gives 
itself  up  to  its  raiment.  And  then  how  it  is  adorned! 
It  may  appear,  in  a  single  night,  to  have  put  on  its  new 
attire,  and,  lo!  it  is  one  with  the  mother-of-pearl,  the 
diamond  glints,  and  the  fluff  of  the  angels'  wings  that 
we  esteem  may  be  the  popular  tints  in  Heaven. 

We  are  even  now  upon  the  eve  of  the  translation! 
It  will  be  here  soon — the  most  wonderful  apocalypse. 
I  am  looking  for  it  every  morning  from  my  window. 
It  is  the  blossoming  of  the  apple-orchards. 

You,  perhaps,  take  it  for  granted.  All  right.  Go 
your  way,  stranger.  But  you  really  have  no  right  to 
expect  quite  so  much.  For,  where  is  there  anything 
else  in  the  world  so  beautiful  as  a  Maine  apple-orchard 
in  full  bloom?  People  go  across  the  sea  to  be  in  Japan 
in  cherry-blossom  time.  It  is  not  so  lovely  as  apple- 
blossom  time  in  Maine.  Wonder  is  that  there  are  not 
already  processions  of  poets  on  their  way  here  to 
Maine,  singing  odes  as  they  march  and  waving  banners 
with  iambics  on  them. 

A  proper  poet — literary  poet,  I  mean — one  who 
really  prints  his  verses,  could  get  a  lot  out  of  a  week 
under  an  apple  tree.  Of  course  the  every  day  poet — 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES        47 

the  one  who  only  thinks  his  poetry  and  does  not  bother 
to  write  it,  a  much  happier  way  for  everybody — does 
get  his  dividends  any  way  out  of  the  apple-blossom 
time.  He  is  usually  very  practical  and  owns  apple- 
trees.  He  likes  to  see  how  they  bud  and  how  they 
blossom  and  how  they  fruit  in  the  fall.  But  the  Poet 
— purely  literary — tho  he  has  written  of  apple-blos- 
soms, maybe  has  never  seen  one.  Come  over  to  Maine 
and  lie  down  a  week  and  look  up  thru  the  heaven- 
starred  branches  of  the  apple  tree  and  see  God.  Come 
over  to  Maine  and  get  a  sniff  or  two  of  the  perfume 
from  a  Maine  hillside.  Come  over  to  Maine  and  learn 
the  ways  of  the  apple-blossom  and  the  bee  and  the 
trout. 

Did  you  know,  for  instance,  0  Poet!  that  it  is  not 
of  much  use  to  try  to  lure  the  big  fish  from  the  trout- 
inhabited  lakes  of  Maine  until  the  apple-blossom  is  on 
the  tree.  I  knew  a  Maine  fisherman,  one  of  the  best, 
who  never  wet  a  line  until  the  trees  in  his  own  orchard 
were  bouquets  of  glory.  The  fish  know — you  see! 
The  fish  have  a  habit  of  reviving  from  their  winter 
sleep  along  about  the  time  that  the  apple-tree  puts 
forth  her  color.  Nothing  strange  about  it.  Facts  are, 
as  a  rule,  the  strangest  things  we  know.  Come  on, 
then,  Poet,  and  fish  and  think  and  think  and  fish  and 
smell  the  sweets  of  heavenly  things  and  see  the  rai- 
ment of  the  Lord  cast  down  on  the  apple  tree  for  an 
airing  once  a  year.  The  Cherubims  are  wearing  about 
all  the  old  colors,  as  usual. 

Old  chaps  can  come  back  and  be  sentimental,  in 
apple-blossom  time.  Perhaps,  if  they  were  born  in 
Maine,  they  have  certain  memories  about  this  time. 
An  evening  lamp,  a  low  window,  a  woman  sitting  mend- 
ing by  the  table,  brothers  and  sisters  studying  lessons, 
in  short  the  old,  old  home  and  the  faint  odor  of  apple- 
blossoms  coming  up  out  of  the  orchard.  Every  time 
you  have  smelled  it  since  then — these  fifty  years,  you 


48        JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

see  the  mother  by  the  lamp,  you  think  of  old  dad.  You 
think  of  the  lilacs,  the  old  red  lilacs  up  against  the  par- 
lor window,  and  their  perfume.  I  don't  know  where 
else  over  the  old  farm  your  memories  may  wander.  I 
surely  am  not  going  to  get  sentimental  over  it. 

But — hear  me — there  is  a  lot  to  this  "apple-blos- 
som" stuff. 


ON  "SHADOW  AND  SUBSTANCE" 

N  JESOPS  Fables  you  will  find  the  following: 
A  Traveler  hired  an  Ass  to  convey  him  to  a 
distant  place.  The  day  being  intensely  hot 
and  the  sun  shining  in  its  strength,  the  trav- 
eler stopped  to  rest  and  sought  shelter  from 
the  heat  under  the  Shadow  of  the  Ass.  As 
this  afforded  protection  for  but  one  and  as  the  traveler 
and  the  owner  of  the  Ass  both  claimed  it,  a  violent  dis- 
pute arose  between  them  as  to  which  had  the  right  to 
it.  The  owner  maintained  that  he  had  let  the  Ass  only 
and  not  the  Shadow.  The  traveler  maintained  that 
with  the  hire  of  the  Ass,  he  had  hired  his  Shadow  also. 
The  quarrel  proceeded  from  words  to  blows  and  while 
the  men  fought,  the  Ass  galloped  off. 

Moral:  In  quarreling  about  the  Shadow,  we  often 
lose  the  Substance. 

Of  course !  If  you  never  quarreled,  the  Fable  has 
no  significance  to  you,  but  if  you  have  ever  had  a  fight 
with  another  man  or  woman  about  something  that  did 
not  amount  to  a  row  of  pins,  ^Esop  says  something. 

I  saw  a  man  and  a  woman  a  few  months  ago  in  the 
divorce  court.  There  did  not  seem  to  be  much  of  any- 
thing the  trouble — too  much  "personality" — some  call 
it  "temperament;"  better  called  "egoism."  Also  thru 
the  crack  of  the  door,  the  court  could  see  the  sharp 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES        49 

nose  of  a  sniffy  mother-in-law.  There  are  such  crit- 
ters— alas !  Well — they  were  nice  looking  young  peo- 
ple ;  too  sensible  to  be  fighting  over  his  right  to  sit  up 
nights  and  read  when  she  thought  he  ought  to  be  kiss- 
ing her  under  the  left  ear.  Too  sensible  to  be  fighting 
over  her  liking  to  go  out  and  see  the  movies  now  and 
then,  when  he  thought  she  had  not  the  ghost  of  a  right 
to  spend  money  for  such  purposes.  I  could  see  the 
Ass's  ears,  crowned  with  orange  blossoms,  and  sur- 
rounded by  dancing  cupids — if  only  the  two  little  fools 
would  kiss  and  make  up  and  recall  the  fact  that  he  is 
an  entity  apart  from  her,  and  she  is  an  entity  apart 
from  him,  and  that  each  has  certain  rights  to  pursuit 
of  harmless  happiness.  But  alas!  The  Uncrowned 
Ass!  It  galloped  away  via  the  divorce  court,  taking 
with  it  what  substance? — Two  broken  lives;  the  hope 
and  happiness  of  two  little  children  whom  they  had 
brought  into  the  world  and  who  have  a  right  to  the  love 
of  a  mother  and  the  counsel  of  a  father. 

You  may  recall  instances  where  partners  in  busi- 
ness have  not  been  able  to  agree  over  which  was  the 
boss.  The  business  was  prosperous  and  profitable. 
They  liquidated.  There  was  a  case  in  our  town  of 
a  most  profitable  shoe-factory.  It  was  their  affair — 
not  mine,  but  the  other  day  one  of  them  said  to  me, 
"If  we  hadn't  differed  over  nothing  we  would  have  been 
taking  those  profits  up  to  this  hour,  for  we  were  a 
successful  team." 

My  friend,  do  not  quarrel  unless  the  fight  is  worth 
while.  Fight  for  Right.  Fight  for  Substance.  Fight 
for  the  things  that  endure — chief  of  which  is  Justice 
to  all  men  and  women  and  children.  But  do  not  fight 
for  the  Shadow  of  a  substance  and  see  the  substance 
gallop  off  while  you  are  gouging  and  biting  and  rolling 
in  the  dirt. 


ON  "FEATHER  BEDS,  ET  CETERA" 

UR  Maine  News  Editor  came  over  to  my  desk 
the  other  day  and  said:  "They  are  having  a 
law-suit  up  in  northern  Maine,  over  the  own- 
ership of  a  feather-bed.  Why  don't  you  con- 
verse with  your  readers  on  the  feather-bed  ?" 
And  she  said  it  just  as  tho  it  were  some- 
thing soft. 

Until  this  happened,  we  had  supposed  that  the 
feather-bed  was  extinct,  like  the  dodo  and  the  great 
auk.  We  did  not  know  that  one  was  left  in  captivity. 
They  used  to  be  numerous  and  considered  valuable.  A 
newly-married  couple  could  set  up  housekeeping  with 
a  feather-bed  and  a  watch-dog.  Do  you  recall  the  ap- 
pearance of  Aylward  the  Archer  in  Conan  Doyle's 
"White  Company"  coming  back  from  Flanders  and  the 
wars,  bearing  his  richest  spoil,  a  feather-bed,  two 
varlets  carrying  it  ? 

I  have  slept  on  a  feather-bed  in  summer  in  the  hot 
attic  of  a  story  and  a  half  country  farm-house,  after  a 
day  when  the  thermometer  had  been  95  degrees  in  the 
shade,  one  window  in  the  room  and  that  about  as  big 
as  the  seat  of  my  pants,  crickets  chirruping  "more 
heat"  outside,  corn  growing  so  that  you  could  hear  it, 
distant  bull-frogs  droning,  and  myself  snugly  and  cosi- 
ly ensconsed  in  a  feather-bed  that  kept  crawling  up 
around  me  with  its  hot  hands  and  enveloping  my  sys- 
tem. I  believe  that  after  a  youth  devoted  to  such  hot 
times  in  the  old  town,  a  man  is  proof  against  dissipa- 
tion in  this  world  and  the  next.  Sure  thing,  he  knows 
what  heat  is ! 

Under  the  feather-bed  was  a  bed  made  of  corn- 
husks.  Everything  right  off  the  farm,  as  it  were! 
And  under  that  was  a  corded  bed.  Did  you  ever  cord 
up  a  bed?  There  is  some  fun  you  have  missed!  You 
must  be  a  man  or  else  a  farmerette,  to  do  it  modestly. 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES        51 

The  cord  runs  from  side  to  side  and  then  longitudinally, 
making  neat  little  squares,  thru  which  you  penetrate 
your  legs  and  tighten  the  cord.  Then  you  have  a  mal- 
let and  a  wooden  bed-pin  which  latter  you  drive  into 
the  holes  in  the  side  of  the  bed  to  hold  the  bed-cord 
preparatory  to  tightening  it.  Then  the  bed  falls  down. 
It  always  did  and  it  always  would.  The  proper  way  to 
tighten  a  bed  was  to  walk  down  in  the  cross-cords  and 
pull  up  the  longitudinal  cords.  And  if  you  were  smart 
and  strong,  you  could  lift  yourself  by  your  own  bed- 
cord.  If  there  was  anything  I  would  rather  not  do  as  a 
boy,  it  was  to  cord  up  a  bed.  There  was  only  one  thing 
that  had  it  tied  to  the  spare  tire  and  that  was  changing 
the  tick  on  a  feather-bed. 

That  was  annual.  You  could  tell  when  the  neigh- 
bors were  doing  it  in  the  spring  by  the  flight  of  feath- 
ers. They  would  settle  miles  away  and,  as  they  came 
floating  down,  mother  would  pick  one  up  and  say,  "That 
is  Mrs.  Tyler's  feathers.  She  is  changing  ticks.  Son- 
ny, you  get  ready  for  tomorrow."  I  know  of  nothing 
more  depressing  than  to  shoulder  a  feather-bed — the 
goose-feathers  or  the  hen's  feathers  of  which  have  seg- 
regated in  the  southwest  corner  of  the  tick — bring  it 
down  stairs  out  of  doors  into  the  warm  and  unsanitary 
region  back  of  the  barn  and  proceed  to  change  ticks  by 
removing  the  feathers  from  one  to  another,  meantime 
endeavoring  to  reanimate  the  feathers.  You  can  do 
about  so  much  in  this  world.  But  you  can't  put  much 
pep  into  a  discouraged  hen's  feather.  I  found  that  out 
when  young  and  then  and  there  declared  that  whatever 
business  I  adopted,  it  would  not  be  that  of  feather- 
encourager.  On  a  hot  day,  with  feathers  up  your  nose 
and  tickling  the  back  of  your  neck  and  sifting  thru 
your  kidneys  and  gall-bladder,  it  is  not  half  as  much 
fun  as  fishing  on  a  good  brook,  under  the  shade  of  an 
old  elm  with  the  bobolinks  singing  their  roundelays  to 
your  boyhood  happiness. 


52        JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

I  have  known  good  old  couples  who  have  slept  all  of 
their  lives  together  on  a  feather-bed,  over  a  husk-bed, 
over  a  corded  bed.  It  was  as  unsanitary  as  drinking 
out  of  a  water-tumbler.  But  they  lived  to  old  age.  I 
don't  know  how  they  did  it.  Yes — I  do.  They  had 
boys  who  corded  up  the  bed  and  manicured  the  feath- 
ers. Some  of  the  boys  outlived  it.  They  are  now 
sleeping  on  something  other  than  feather-beds.  It 
only  goes  to  show  that  some  things  may  be  endured  if 
you  can  get  others  to  do  part  of  the  enduring.  And 
that's  the  philosophy  of  it. 


ON  "STICKING  TO  THE  JOB" 

WENT  fishing  last  week  at  Kineo.  It  was  a 
day  of  howling  winds  and  storm-driven  sky 
— just  the  kind  of  a  day  to  seek  the  lee  of  the 
coast,  to  fish  along  the  shore  under  the  toss- 
ing, wind-lashed  birches  and  to  dine  on  shore 
by  the  open  fire  with  the  guides  deftly  laying 
the  table  and  pouring  the  nectar  that  IS  coffee. 

I  had  a  Stanley  spinner  on  my  line.  The  guide 
favored  a  Cornwall  spinner  and  all  day  long  he  be- 
moaned the  fate  that  left  us  with  no  spinner  to  suit  his 
fancy.  "If  I  only  had  a  Cornwall  spinner."  And  yet 
I  was  catching  fish.  Furthermore,  this  guide  was 
wishing  we  were  in  another  place.  "We  ought  to  have 
gone  down  on  the  Toe  of  the  Boot/  I  never  did  like 
these  Socatean  waters."  And  so  it  was,  all  day  long — 
the  distant  pastures  always  fairer  to  him. 

After  I  got  home  and  began  to  think  about  the 
guide  and  began  to  summon  my  proverbial  philosophy 
to  fit  the  case,  I  ran  across  this  story  in  a  little  booklet 
that  came  to  my  desk  called  "McK,  and  R.,  Drug 
Topics,"  which  is  written  by  a  very  clever  person.  It 
was  under  the  caption,  "'Oh,  if  I  Only  had  the  Othet 
Fellow's  Job,"  and  was  devoted  to  this  idea — "Why 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES        53 

shift?  Before  you  change  be  sure  you  axe  doing  all 
you  can  where  you  are." 

This  was  the  story: 

Grover  Cleveland,  when  he  was  President,  went  out 
fishing  one  day  with  Joe  Jefferson  and  William  H. 
Crane,  the  actors. 

After  they  had  been  out  less  than  half  an  hour, 
without  getting  a  nibble  on  their  lines,  Jefferson  began 
to  get  restless  and  fidget  about  the  boat. 

"Let's  move  over  there,"  said  the  famous  imperson- 
ator of  "Rip  Van  Winkle,"  "I'm  sure  we'll  find  it  better. 
There's  nothing  here." 

Cleveland  said  nothing — just  went  on  fishing. 

"This  is  wasting  time,"  Jefferson  continued  in  a 
little  while.  "We've  been  here  45  minutes  by  the  clock 
and  not  one  of  us  has  had  a  bite.  The  fish  must  all  be 
over  on  the  other  side  of  the  pond.  We  better  move  the 
boat."  Cleveland  looked  up  from  his  line  and  dryly 
replied : 

"Joe,  when  I  was  a  small  boy  I  went  fishing  with  my 
Uncle  Elihu,  and  I  remember  he  told  me  that  one 
of  the  secrets  of  success  in  life  was  to  stick  to  the  place 
where  you'd  thrown  your  anchor  out.  Too  many 
folks/  said  Uncle  Elihu,  'spend  all  their  time  pulling  up 
their  anchors  and  rowing  around ;  they  don't  catch  the 
fish.'  As  for  me,  when  I  start  in  to  fish,  I  sit  right 
there  and  fish  until  either  the  pond  runs  dry  or  the 
horn  blows  for  supper." 

Many  people  in  all  walks  of  life  who  are  sure  there 
are  no  fish  where  they  are,  are  aching  to  move  and  cast 
anchor  elsewhere — just  the  way  Joe  Jefferson  did.  He 
made  a  million  dollars  out  of  the  stage,  but  always  was 
sure  there  was  nothing  in  it.  He  wanted  to  be  a  paint- 
er. Comedians  always  want  to  be  tragedians  and 
vice-versa.  They  want  to  move  on  and  fish  elsewhere. 

Same  with  lots  of  men  in  trades  and  business. 
They  want  the  other  fellow's  job.  The  other  fellow's 


54        JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

job ! — How  about  your  own? — Are  you  making  the  firm 
stand  up  on  its  hind  legs  and  notice  you?  Are  you 
putting  so  much  pep  into  it  that  it  can't  do  without 
you  ?  Have  you  sewed  it  up  tight  ?  Have  you  cleaned 
up  the  pool  until  there  is  nothing  left  in  it  for  you? 
If  you  have — move  on;  but  if  all  you  are  doing  is  be- 
moaning fairer  pastures  and  deeper  pools  "over  there ;" 
if  all  you  do  is  act  surly,  complain  that  you  are  misun- 
derstood ;  dawdling  around  and  idling  on  the  fish-pole, 
why — perhaps  you  better  drop  overboard.  Nobody 
will  miss  you.  If  you  are  going  to  talk  like  a  fish  and 
act  like  a  fish — better  be  a  fish.  The  world  is  full  of 
examples  of  success  made  by  sticking  to  the  job.  The 
world  is  full  of  failures  of  men  of  marked  intelligence 
who  have  roamed  afar  looking  for  better  fishing 
"around  the  Toe  of  the  Boot/  "  If  you  are  fishing  the 
pool — fish  it  out. 


ON  "THE  BATH-TUB" 

HE  Bath-tub  is  an  oval  receptacle  for  the 
human  body.  It  is  about  two  feet  deep  and 
about  twelve  inches  too  short.  It  comes  in 
several  varieties  from  the  sitz  to  the  "snitz." 
The  latter  is  a  kind  of  bath-tub  that  you  look 
at  but  do  not  wet. 
A  bath-room  with  a  bath-tub  in  it  is  a  good  thing 
to  have  in  the  house  even  if  you  have  no  use  for  it — 
because  it  gives  you  something  to  talk  about.  Some 
years  ago,  people  would  speak  of  the  bath-tub  in  that 
casual,  deprecatory  way  in  which  one  nowadays  speaks 
of  his  automobile,  a  sort  of  ticket,  admitting  one  to  the 
circle  of  the  first-families.  To  say  "I  was  in  the  bath- 
tub when  you  rung  the  door-bell,"  was  much  like  say- 
ing, "The  winter  I  was  in  the  Legislater,"  or  "the  year 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES        55 

I  was  in  Europe."  It  gave  you  a  certain  standing.  It 
put  your  unwashed  friend  at  a  disadvantage.  He  could 
not  expect  to  have  the  polish — ablutionary  or  other- 
wise— that  you  have  when  he  practiced  merely  sec- 
tional and  non-contemporaneous  application  of  soap  and 
water.  There  was  no  special  distinction  coming  to  him 
in  society  in  those  days,  if  all  he  could  drag  into  the 
social  chat  was  some  such  remark  as  this:  "I  was 
a'washing  myself  back  of  the  ears  when  you  was 
a-callin'  for  me."  But  if  he  could  mention  an  "alto- 
gether," in  a  stationary  bath-tub !  Oh,  Boy ! 

Perhaps  you  notice  that  I  use  the  word  "stationary 
bath-tubs."  I  do  so  with  design.  In  olden  days,  one 
bathed  in  a  tub  which  was  neither  stationary  nor  ex- 
clusive. Mother  soaked  the  clothes  in  it  Sundays; 
banged  the  washboard  over  it  on  Mondays ;  hulled  corn 
in  it  Tuesdays;  scoured  it  out  Wednesdays  and  began 
to  wash  the  boys  and  girls  in  it  Thursdays,  Fridays  and 
Saturdays.  It  was  a  blue  tub  painted  white  inside. 
After  it  had  seen  use,  it  frequently  developed  splinters. 
I  mention  the  fact  because  I  remember  it.  I  have  some 
of  them  now,  in  my  system,  I  think.  We  usually 
bathed  in  the  kitchen;  but  often  in  the  barn,  or  the 
pantry,  or  the  parlor,  or  the  dining  room.  One  day  in 
March  it  happened  in  the  dining  room.  Mother  was 
bending  over  me  with  a  scrubbing-brush  and  a  yellow 
pitcher  full  of  soft  soap  and  I  was  sitting  on  a  splinter, 
when  the  schoolmarm  butted  in  and  asked  mother  why 
I  was  absent  from  school  the  previous  day.  It  was 
referred  to  me  and  I  had  no  ready  answer.  If  you  ever 
got  a  moist-licking  in  a  wash-tub  in  the  month  of 
March,  for  playing  hookey,  you  will  know  why  I  yet 
remember  the  incident.  It  is  my  recollection  that 
in  those  days  most  of  the  "altogether"  bathing  was 
done  in  the  spring  and  summer.  It  was  difficult  to  bust 
the  ice  in  the  wash-tub  after  Thanksgiving  day.  So 
we  generally  confined  our  ablutions  to  a  reasonable 


56        JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

reach  below  the  collar  button  and  waited  patiently  for 
spring. 

Adam  Thompson  of  Cincinnati,  Ohio,  was  the  first 
man  in  America  to  put  a  bath-tub  with  running  water 
into  his  house,  and  piactice  winter-bathing.  This  was 
Dec.  20th,  1842.  It  aroused  a  nation  to  controversy. 
The  medical  profession,  with  its  usual  foresight,  de- 
clared it  a  dangerous  thing  and  bound  to  increase  the 
prevalence  of  zymotic  diseases.  Society  frowned  on 
mid-winter  bathing.  Finally,  Millard  Fillmore,  Presi- 
dent of  the  United  States,  put  a  bath-tub  into  the 
White  House,  in  1851.  That  settled  it.  Society  took 
it  up  and  began  to  brag  about  bathing  on  other  days 
than  Saturday  night.  A  New  York  hotel  put  in  a 
bath-tub.  People  went  far  to  see  it.  Royal  Dukes 
were  taken  around  to  see  it  on  their  visits  to  America. 
It  was  not  uncommon  for  some  untitled  person  to  be 
using  it  and  compelled  to  dive  under  water  while  it  was 
inspected  by  a  Duke  or  maybe  a  common  Earl. 

There  is  much  more  I  could  say.  But  I  refrain. 
Bath-tubs  are  but  the  beginning.  For  the  day  will 
come  when  sumptuous  public  baths  will  be  maintained 
by  every  town  of  20,000  inhabitants  and  when  it  will 
be  fit  cause  for  indictment  for  neglect  or  refusal  by 
any  municipality  to  comply  with  this  law.  Then,  per- 
haps, we  shall  be  clean — and  Godly. 


ON  "CLOTHES" 

E  ALL  know  something  about  clothes.  Every- 
one has  used  them — except  Adam  and  Eve — 
and  even  they  had  a  definite,  if  limited 
knowledge  of  their  uses. 

When  I  was  a  boy,  we  had  no  children's 
stores.  Your  mother — old  chap — used  to  cut 
your  hair  and  your  clothes.  You  can  see  some  of 
mother's  hair-cuts  of  sixty  years  ago — eight  inches  of 
hair  chopped  off  at  the  coat  collar  and  a  lambrequin 
underneath.  You  used  to  whisper  across  the  aisle  in 
school,  "Mother  cut  yer  hair  'round  a  sugar-bowl!" 
And  then  someone  got  licked  at  recess. 

Same  way  with  clothes.  Mother  used  to  lay  you 
down  on  the  kitchen  floor  and  mark  a  pattern  of  you 
out  in  chalk.  And  then  she  used  to  take  a  suit  of 
clothes  formerly  belonging  to  some  remote  adult  ances- 
tor and  of  entirely  different  architecture  and  carve  you 
a  suit.  We  used  to  wear  pants  that  had  been  what  we 
called  "razeed."  They  were  shortened  in  the  legs  and 
reduced  in  the  dome.  As  a  result  the  pockets  came 
down  so  far  that  a  small  boy  had  to  double  up  to  find 
his  jackknife.  I  can  recall  the  appearance  of  a  boy  in 
a  pair  of  his  grandfather's  razeed  trousers,  with  barn- 
door front.  That  was  going  some. 

One  good  woman  in  my  neighborhood  used  to  put 
gores  in  her  boy's  pants  fore  and  aft.  Thus  she  got 
double  wear,  for  he  had  to  turn  and  turn  about  in 
those  pants  every  other  day  so  that  they  would  last 
longer.  Seats  of  pants  were  the  most  vulnerable  por- 
tions in  boyhood  I  I  had  a  pair  of  pants  once  made  out 
of  mother's  beaver  cloak.  They  were  nice  pants  but 
not  very  natty.  The  goods  was  very  durable — being 
about  half  an  inch  thick.  The  finest  thing  about  those 
pants  was  that  they  would  stand  alone.  I  could  take 
them  off — the  cute  little  things — at  night  and  they 


58         JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

would  have  done  nicely  for  a  double-barreled  umbrella 
rack.  When  I  first  wore  them  to  school  the  teacher 
kept  telling  me  to  please  sit  down  in  my  seat  and  not 
half  down.  "Please  marm,"  says  I,  "I  can't  sit  down 
no  farther,  my  pants  is  too  stiff  and  thick." 

I  heard  Simeon  Ford  speak  once  about  clothes  and 
he  said  that  he  once  went  to  school  in  a  suit  carved  out 
of  his  uncle's  army  overcoat.  He  entered  the  school 
with  misgivings  and  was  received  with  enthusiasm 
Remarks  were  made  calculated  to  wound  his  feelings. 
In  order  to  provide  for  his  confirmed  habit  of  growing, 
tucks  had  been  let  into  the  pants  front  and  back,  so 
that  the  effect  was  more  striking  and  bizarre  than 
fashionable.  It  was  common  talk  at  that  time  that 
army  cloth  was  all  shoddy  and  no  good  to  wear.  The 
gossip  was  unfounded.  The  clothes  wore  like  iron. 
He  spent  hours  sliding  down  cellar  doors  and  over  the 
rocks  but  the  hateful  army  overcoat  would  not  wear 
out.  Finally  he  got  mad  and  outgrew  it  and  it  was 
passed  on  to  some  younger  relative  and  probably  some 
poor  wretch  is  wearing  it  yet. 

Of  course,  if  we  men  could  have  our  way,  we  would 
all  be  wearing  kilts.  They  seem  thrifty  and  cheap. 
I  can  think  of  some  men  in  Lewiston  and  Auburn  that 
I  would  as  soon  see  in  kilts  as  to  wear  'em  myself.  If 
we  could  save  enough  on  kilts  we  might  buy  our  wives 
at  least  two  hats  a  year  more — and  really  all  a  woman 
needs,  nowadays,  is  a  pair  of  high  boots,  a  few  other 
things  and  a  hat  a  week.  But  I  am  glad  that  it  is  so. 
Fashion  is  a  fine  thing.  It  makes  markets  and  it 
troubles  tight-wads.  There  never  was  an  age  meaner 
than  that  age  when  the  old  gent  made  your  boots, 
mother  made  your  pants  and  big  sister  chopped  off 
your  loose  hair.  It  was  mortifying.  It  spoiled  a  boy's 
pride.  It  kept  his  mind  off  his  lessons.  It  was  need- 
less and  ill-advised  economy,  in  restraint  of  trade.  You 
can't  get  business,  unless  you  DO  business ! 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES        59 

It  is  just  the  same  in  life.  It  is  mighty  hard  for  a 
man  to  show  up  well  in  a  formal  assembly  when  he  has 
a  patch  on  the  seat  of  his  pants  of  a  different  color  of 
goods.  He  can't  make  his  way  very  well  in  society 
without  a  dress-suit.  Once  all  we  needed  was  a  paper 
collar  and  a  linen  suit.  Today  good  clothes,  neat 
clothes,  are  absolutely  essential.  It  was  a  shame — the 
way  they  used  to  dress  girls  and  boys.  Just  as  much 
a  shame  as  it  is  to  over-dress  them,  as  some  people  are 
doing  today. 


ON  "HELL" 

0,  DEAR  friend !  This  is  not  to  be  a  discussion 
of  "hell"  the  expletive,  but  of  "hell"  as  a 
location. 

There  is  a  popular  revival  of  Hell  as  a  fu- 
ture abode  for  Germans.  There  seems  to  be 
no  other  punishment  to  fit  the  crime.  If 
there  is  not  a  Hell  for  Huns,  what  sort  of  a  bogie  man 
is  going  to  get  them.  Yes !  WE  have  plenty  of  room 
in  our  philosophy  and  religion,  for  some  kind  of  a 
super-steam  and  poison  gas  hell  especially  built  for  the 
Pagan  tribe  of  women-killers  and  murderers  of  the  sick 
and  helpless,  that  inhabit  and  fester  the  earth  around 
Potsdam. 

There  is  no  history  of  Hell  at  hand.  Its  beginnings 
go  back  to  the  dawn  of  the  human  race.  It  seems  to 
have  been  preached  very  strongly  very  early  in  the 
ministry.  St.  Thomas  Aquinas,  who  was  a  rather  dog- 
matic chap,  about  seven  hundred  years  ago,  informed  a 
world  that  doubtless  needed  the  information,  that  the 
redeemed  in  Heaven  could  look  out  and  see  the  damned 
in  Hell  and  have  no  sort  of  pity  for  their  tortures. 
Somehow,  today,  there  is  a  sort  of  comfort  in  that  doc- 
trine as  applied  to  the  folks  that  crucify  captives  and 


60         JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

shoot  nurses.  The  early  fathers  of  the  church  used 
these  things  on  wicked  people  and  perhaps  did  a  lot  of 
restraining  work  with  them. 

Now  a  few  facts  about  hell.  St.  Bonaventura  says 
that  any  human  conception  of  hell  is  heaven  compared 
to  what  hell  really  is.  Now  there  is  some  power  in  old 
St.  Bonaventura,  is  there  not?  He  says  that  the 
damned  are  packed  in  at  the  rate  of  100,000,000  to  a 
German  square  mile.  You  notice  that  he  says  "Ger- 
man." Jerome  and  Tertullian  say  that  the  popular 
bath  in  hell  is  probably  hot  sulphur  and  burning  pitch. 
Gulielanus  Pariensis,  an  old  ecclesiastic,  says  that  ac- 
cording to  his  computation,  there  are  44,435,556  devils 
alone,  but  other  authorities  say  that  there  must  be  a 
great  many  more  to  do  the  work  of  efficient  and  com- 
plete torture  required.  Jonathan  Edwards  said  in 
1741  at  Enfield,  Ct.,  that  the  bigger  part  of  men 
that  had  died  hitherto  had  undoubtedly  gone  to  hell. 
Some  idea  of  the  population  of  hell  may  be  gained  by 
the  statement  of  Dr.  Louis  de  Moulin  of  the  University 
of  Oxford  in  1680  that  the  population  of  hell  increased 
at  the  rate  of  15,768,000  a  year. 

There  is  some  question  about  the  location  of  hell. 
It  has  been  located  at  the  poles,  at  the  antipodes,  in  the 
centre  of  the  earth,  in  Mars,  in  the  moon,  in  the  sea. 
Tertullian  and  Dante  placed  it  in  the  centre  of  the 
earth.  This  seems  to  be  the  popular  location.  Every 
time  we  see  a  volcano  we  think  of  hell  and  it  makes  us 
sad  to  think  how  its  choice  society  up  to  the  year  1914 
has  been  partially  and  is  to  be  completely  ruined  by  an 
influx  of  undesirable,  low-lived  Huns.  The  absence  of 
air,  and  the  small  size  of  the  earth's  centre  indicating 
a  scarcity  of  room,  have  driven  the  theologians  to  look 
to  the  sun  as  a  fit  place.  So  there  we  leave  it.  As  to 
the  shape  of  hell — it  is  universally  agreed  to  be  cir- 
cular. No  corners  for  escape.  It  is  no  place  for 
plumbers,  for  there  is  no  running  water.  Perhaps, 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES         61 

however,  they  might  be  useful  in  looking  after  the 
liquid  fire.  Possibly  this  vigorous  element  may  sup- 
plant cold  water  in  the  domestic  appliances  of  the 
Gehenna  bath  rooms,  etc. 

These  are  all  of  the  actual  facts  I  have  been  able 
to  gather  about  Hell.  It  has  undoubtedly  outgrown 
the  centre  of  the  earth;  is  located  in  the  sun;  has  a 
large  population  and  is  banking  the  fires  and  cleaning 
house  for  more.  Personally,  I  do  think  that  there  never 
was  a  time  when  some  sort  of  a  reasonable  sort  of 
hell  ought  to  be  preached  more  resolutely  than  now.  I 
don't  mean  to  be  cruel  about  it,  but  there  is  altogether 
too  little  said  about  the  next  world  to  keep  some  Prot- 
estants straight.  They  need  a  word  of  warning  now 
and  then  about  Hell.  Make  it  to  suit  yourself — the 
size,  location,  temperature,  sanitation,  etc.,  but  for  the 
sake  of  a  heaven  here  and  hereafter,  don't  forget  to 
preach  that  the  wages  of  sin  are  death  and  that  as  ye 
sow,  so  shall  ye  reap. 


ON  "WEARING  FALSE  TEETH" 

HAD  a  friend  once  who  depended  on  me  for 
advice  and  I  gave  it  freely,  feeling  that  it 
was  mine  to  give  and  his  to  take  or  leave; 
and  among  other  things,  I  advised  him, 
often,  to  have  his  teeth  out;  buy  himself  a 
set  of  automatic  ch ewers  and  enjoy  himself. 
He  seemed  to  evade  the  topic  except  when  he  had  the 
toothache,  when  he  would  come  to  me,  plaintively,  and 
ask  me  all  over  again — if  I  were  he  would  I  have  them 
out.  And  not  being  my  teeth,  I  always  assumed  heroic 
proportions  and  said  "Sure." 

One  day  he  came  home  and  smiled  and  then  we 
knew.    And  I  never  saw  a  man  open  up  as  he  did. 


62         JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

One  could  see  clear  into  the  back  of  his  neck.  One 
could  positively  see  his  indigestion.  I  could  see  his 
vermiform  appendix  when  he  laughed.  I  was  simply 
fascinated  by  the  man  and  could  not  keep  my  eyes  off 
of  him — such  distances,  such  nuances,  such  a  roomy 
tonneau,  such  guttural  perspectives. 

He  lived  with  us  that  summer  most  of  the  time  and 
I  used  to  lose  myself  watching  him  develop  into  a  sun- 
shiny, toothless  mortal,  with  a  reach  to  his  laugh  that 
could  take  him  over  any  bunker  except  tough  meat. 
He  fairly  radiated  sunshine.  Look  at  him  and  see  new 
vistas  of  his  soul  open  up.  Look  at  him  and  not  sim- 
ply believe  in  the  hereafter — you  could  even  catch 
glimpses  of  it.  We  reveled  in  him.  We  lost  ourselves 
in  his  smile. 

And  then  one  day  he  came  home  with  his  new  teeth 
in  his  pocket,  a  full  set,  upper  and  under.  He  sat  with 
us  a  while,  in  his  old  sunshiny,  open-faced  self,  looking 
when  he  smiled  like  the  front  doors  of  an  old-fashioned 
country  barn,  empty  of  hay.  And  then  he  stole  over  to 
the  sideboard  and  came  back  and  when  he  came  back 
our  friend  was  no  more.  He  had  passed  on.  In  his 
place  was  the  original  wild  man  of  the  plains,  with  a 
double  row  of  gleaming  teeth,  thirty-nine  in  each  set, 
upper  and  under,  and  each  tooth  sticking  out  nine  feet 
in  front  of  him.  He  clicked  them  at  us  and  we  got 
under  the  table,  in  fear.  Head  on,  he  looked  like  a 
rotary  snow-plow  in  action.  Every  eye  was  riveted  on 
the  human  Upper  and  Under.  His  old  look  of  benevo- 
lence was  gone.  In  its  place  was  the  aspect  of  the 
Walking  Delegate  of  the  "Cannibal's  Amalgamated 
Union."  His  upper  and  under  lips  pursed  out  heroi- 
cally to  meet  the  gleam  of  the  projecting  ivories  that 
looked  like  the  front  of  a  marble-worker's  shop.  The 
Second  Maid  came  in  with  a  dish  of  summer  squash, 
saw  the  man  at  the  end  of  the  table,  exclaimed  "My 
God!"  dropped  the  dish  and  fled.  The  teeth  moved 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES         63 

spasmodically  at  us  and  seemed  about  to  utter  a 
remark.  The  wind  whistled  thru  them  like  ghost- 
winds  thru  the  keyhole  of  a  murderer's  house.  Trem- 
ulously we  waited  for  we  knew  that  the  teeth  were 
struggling  to  speak.  When  they  spake  they  asked  the 
old,  old  question,  "Are  they  good  fithsh?" 

We  lied — au  naturel.  Our  dear  friend  seemed  to  be 
pleased  and  he  took  the  teeth  with  him  on  a  trip  to  Col- 
orado, the  next  week.  He  wore  them  two  days  and 
then  used  them  to  put  against  the  doors  of  his  rooms 
nights  to  keep  out  prowlers.  He  said  that  if  he  set 
them  up,  pyramidically,  at  the  edge  of  his  bunk  in  the 
sleeper,  no  colored  porter  would  come  around  and  dis- 
turb him  even  if  he  slept  a  week.  He  says  that  one 
night  he  awoke  suddenly  and  caught  the  false  teeth 
chewing  the  tassels  off  of  the  curtains  of  the  lower 
section.  Once  when  he  came  back  to  his  room  at  a 
hotel  to  call  for  his  key,  he  was  resting  himself  by 
wearing  his  teeth  in  his  pocket.  The  room  clerk 
refused  to  give  him  the  "other  gentleman's  key"  and 
so  he  had  to  put  in  his  teeth  to  prove  his  identity. 

When  he  got  back  home,  he  was  able  to  wear  the 
teeth  a  part  of  the  time  and  to  eat  ice-cream  with  them. 
His  mechanical  completeness  came  to  pass  with  a  good 
deal  of  delay  and  with  apparently  small  progress.  "I 
wanth  you  allth  to  underthandth,"  said  he,  "thath  ith 
no  eathy  jobth  to  eath  with  an  under  theeth."  But  he 
began  to  gain.  The  consonants  got  past  a  little  better 
each  day.  He  got  so  that  he  could  eat  cereals  pretty 
well.  He  finally  graduated  into  apple-sauce.  Then  he 
captured  the  citadel  of  mashed  potato.  Then  he  went 
into  the  white-meat  of-the-chicken  class  and  finally  he 
began  to  assume  familiar  outlines  face-to  and  to  eat 
table-food  like  the  rest  of  us. 

So — if  a  woman  (or  a  man  for  that  matter)  asks 
you  if  her  new  false  teeth  are  becoming  and  you  can't 
lie  gracefully  you  get  this  piece  of  dental  truth  and 


64         JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

read  it  to  her.  Tell  her  that  she  can't  sue  the  dentist 
for  malpractice  the  first  week.  Tell  her  to  wait  and 
that  ultimately  the  false  beacons  will  recede  and  the 
world  that  once  knew  her  so  well  will  know  her  hence- 
forth forever.  Yea,  tell  it  to  her  very  teeth.  At  least 
she  won't  be  able  to  bite  you ! 


ON  "WINTER  DAYS  AND  NIGHTS" 

ANY  people  count  their  years  by  summers  and 
merely  exist  thru  winters  in  waiting  for 
the  brooks  again  to  be  set  free  and  the  softer 
airs  to  blow.  But  it  is  very  unwise  to  regard 
winter  (the  Maine  winter  even)  as  full  of 
days  of  penance  of  hardship  or  of  cold  ugli- 
ness. If  the  pageantry  of  summer  has  gone,  all  the 
essentials  remain,  the  earth,  the  fields,  the  mountain 
and  the  valley  and  the  elemental  glories  of  the  infinite 
sky.  If  the  earth  is  less  fair  the  stars  have  rekindled 
their  fires,  the  moon  achieves  a  fuller  triumph  and  the 
heavens  wear  a  look  of  more  exalted  simplicity.  If 
there  is  less  of  languor  there  is  more  of  life.  If  there 
is  less  of  art  there  is  more  of  heroism.  The  New  Eng- 
land winter  breeds  sturdier  folks  than  ever  did  tropic 
lands. 

If  you  who  are  of  New  England  birth,  ever  think 
back  to  olden  days;  especially  if  you  live  now  in 
warmer  climes  or  are  in  cities,  where  once  you  lived  in 
the  country,  you  rarely  think  first  of  summer  days. 
Somehow  your  first  thought  sees  a  winter-landscape, 
the  pastures  rolling  away  white  save  for  the  few  out- 
cropping ledges;  the  fields  laid  with  a  tablecloth  of 
white,  the  paths  laboriously  shoveled  from  house  to 
pump,  to  barn;  the  highway  broken  out  by  the  town- 
teams  ;  the  school-house  half  buried  in  snow ;  the  driv- 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES         65 

ing  storm ;  the  battles  with  the  winds  and  the  snow,  in 
which  you  came  off  victor ;  the  leaping  fires ;  the  roast- 
ing apples  and  the  popping  corn ;  the  wail  of  winds ;  the 
combats  with  nature  in  the  daily  surge  to  school;  the 
biting  cold  and  the  tingling  blood;  the  childish  sports 
in  snow  forts  and  on  the  ringing  steel  of  the  ice-skates ; 
the  road  breakers  behind  the  toiling  oxen,  their  voices 
clear  on  the  air  of  the  white  day  after  the  storm ;  the 
drifts  behind  the  kitchen  ell  into  which  you  leaped 
smothering  with  the  purity;  the  woods  resounding  to 
the  sharp  ring  of  the  axe;  the  farmer  foddering  his 
cattle  in  the  barn  with  the  steaming  breath  of  the 
cattle  on  the  eager  air;  the  long  evening  rides  to 
"lyceum;"  to  singing-school  or  to  spelling  bee;  the 
fences  rambling  along  trimmed  fantastically  with  the 
ruffles  and  the  scallops  of  the  wind-drift;  the  rabbit 
tracks  thru  lonely  forests ;  the  dripping  days  when  the 
eaves  sang  and  the  snow  was  easily  moulded  into 
snowballs,  forts  or  snowmen;  the  sunsets  and  the 
dawns ;  the  twilights  and  the  home-circle ;  the  comfort 
and  the  joy  of  good  housing  and  sweet  contentment. 

All  these  must  linger  with  you.  There  is  a 
piquancy  to  these  memories  that  childhood  never  lost 
tho  it  never  knew  its  philosophy  We  of  New  England 
lived  double  experiences ;  enjoyed  more  wonderful  gifts 
from  Nature;  were  blessed  with  more  abundance  of 
Nature's  show  than  those  who  have  but  the  alternating 
seasons  of  dry  and  wet  and  live  forever  without  the 
stern  experiences  of  winter's  buffeting.  "The  sim- 
plicity of  winter"  John  Burroughs  says,  "has  a  deep 
moral.  It  is  a  return  of  Nature  after  a  career  of 
splendor  and  prodigality  to  habits  so  simple  and  aus- 
tere that  it  cannot  be  lost  on  either  the  head  or  the 
heart.  It  is  the  philosopher  coming  back  from  the 
banquet  and  the  wine  to  his  crust  of  bread  and  his  cup 
of  water." 

These  things  are  perhaps  responsible  for  that  finer 


66         JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

spirituality;  that  stronger  discipline;  that  more  cour- 
ageous heart  that  early  endured  and  yet  endures  in 
New  England  civilization.  It  may  account  chiefly  for 
its  fearless  men  and  women  partaking  not  alone  of  the 
splendor  of  the  imaginative  and  artistic  summer  of  our 
incomparable  hills,  but  also  of  those  deeper  tints  of  the 
golden  autumn  and  the  calm  and  placid  austerity  of  our 
matchless  winters. 

I  pity  those  New  Englanders  who  flee  to  Florida 
and  other  languorous  and  lazy  retreats.  They  carry 
little  of  the  old  spirit  of  their  ancestors  who  thought 
nothing  of  long  journeys  by  sleigh  over  miles  in  the 
dead  of  winter  for  pure  enjoyment  and  who  lived  be- 
neath glowing  suns  and  under  silver  moons  with  the 
snows  mounting  high  on  either  side  of  their  lonely 
pathway.  Achievement  was  there.  Life  is  not  in  the 
joys  of  the  Hedonist  but  in  the  conquest  of  the  environ- 
ment. One  does  not  flee  winters  but  faces  them.  One 
does  not  avoid  the  problem  of  existence;  one  solves  it 
and  by  so  doing  becomes  the  stronger.  The  pathways 
still  stretch  over  New  England  hills  clear  in  the  light 
of  the  moon.  The  sled  runners  still  creak  on  the  snow 
of  the  frosty  dawn.  There  are  blazing  noons  and 
nights  when  the  stars  are  fairly  afire  in  the  velvet 
blackness  of  the  skies.  We  love  them.  Our  summers 
are  the  sweeter  for  them.  Our  spring-time  comes  as 
heaven  must  come  after  the  passing  on.  We  are  the 
stronger  for  our  victories,  the  more  substantial  for  our 
effort.  And  the  day  will  come  when  people  will  not  go 
away  from  New  England,  surely  not  from  Maine  in 
winter,  but  will  come  here  as  to  an  austere  yet  incom- 
parable home  of  beauty  to  worship  God  in  His  purest 
physical  manifestation  and  here  find  the  regeneration 
of  body  and  soul  that  shall  fit  him  for  fuller  enjoyment 
of  those  softer  airs  of  Eden  that  breathe  over  this  par- 
adise in  the  days  of  summer. 


ON  "PAPER  COLLAR  DAYS" 

WAS  looking  over  an  old  trunk  the  other  day, 
when  I  came  across  an  old  paper  collar  and  I 
could  not  help  sitting  down  and  holding  it  in 
my  hand  and  thinking  over  the  days  when 
we  wore  them,  wondering,  in  the  meantime, 
what  modern  boys  would  do,  if  they  had  to 
wear  such  things. 

If  I  remember  aright,  one  could  buy  a  dozen  paper 
collars  in  a  nifty  little  round  box — useful  around  the 
house — for  twenty-five  cents.  No  boy,  in  the  era  after 
the  war,  ever  had  a  linen  collar.  He  would  scorn  such 
an  effeminacy  and  would  be  laughed  at  if  he  wore  it — 
paper  collars  were  distinctly  en  regie.  A  dozen  paper 
collars  would  last  indefinitely,  according  to  prudence 
and  the  size  of  a  boy's  neck.  They  were  good  for  a 
week  apiece  any  way,  so  that  twelve  of  them  lasted 
three  months  and,  as  we  never  wore  them  except  on 
state  occasions,  a  dozen  might  last  six  months.  And 
if  we  were  prudent  they  could  be  turned  and  after  they 
were  turned,  if  we  bust  the  reinforced  buttonholes  in 
jumping  around  and  "wrastling,"  we  could  have  the 
rims  of  them  sewed  to  the  flannel  shirts  with  which  we 
wore  them  and  they  would  endure  yet  more  resolutely 
to  the  bitter  and  unwashed  end.  When  a  paper  collar 
was  done  for — it  was  done  for. 

In  my  memory,  somehow,  there  obtrudes  also  half- 
faded  memories  of  paper  -collars  on  gingham  shirts. 
Paper  collars,  too,  on  red  flannel  shirts;  paper  collars 
that  were  too  large ;  paper  collars  that  were  too  small — 
paper  collars  of  extreme  fashion  and  with  beaded  and 
ruffled  rims;  paper  collars  that  shone  like  the  back  of 
a  hack. 

Paper  collars  are  of  the  age  also  of  copper-toed 
boots  and  mutton-tallow  on  cowhides.  It  was  a  fine, 
invigorating  sight  to  see  the  gathering  at  a  singing 


68         JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

school;  hear  the  cowhides  romp;  smell  the  mutton 
taller  frying  out  of  the  footgear  and  see  the  paper 
collars  bust  in  the  strain  of  reaching  the  altitudes  of 
tenor.  A  friend  of  mine  who  taught  singing-school 
used  to  tell  about  a  boy  in  his  adolescence  who  sang 
bass  thru  a  paper  collar — i.  e.,  the  wind  came  up  thru 
it  to  his  vocal  organs.  He  was  over  in  the  tenor  sec- 
tion by  choice  one  evening  in  the  old  singing  school, 
when  the  singing  master  caught  him.  Said  he, 
"William,  what  in  time  are  you  doing  over  here  and 
what  kind  of  a  noise  was  that  I  just  heern  you 
a-makin'?  What  do  you  think  you  sing,  anyway?" 

"W'a'all,"  said  the  young  man,  "usually  I  sing  bass ; 
but  jest  then  I  was  a  squawkin'  off  on  the  lef tenant." 
So  you  see  what  difficulties  we  had  with  adolescence 
in  those  old,  dear  days.  These  scattered  memories  are 
such  that  one  evades  none  of  them  with  surety — he  is 
insensibly  dragged  backward  to  live  again  in  paper- 
collar  days.  Boyhood  was  restricted  in  appearance. 
Girls  wore  gingham  and  looked  angels.  Boys  wore 
paper-collars  on  flannel  shirts  and  smelled  ancient  of 
days,  on  occasions.  If  I  delay  to  think,  I  see  red  wrists 
and  cuff  less  shirts.  I  do  recall  paper  cuffs,  however, 
fine  and  shiny;  detachable,  as  all  cuffs  ought  to  be,  so 
that  on  the  slightest  suspicion  of  soil,  even  in  com- 
pany— just  to  show  one's  punctiliousness,  one  could 
take  them  off  and  shift  the  ends.  I  wore  that  kind  of 
cuffs  even  when  I  was  in  college — so  did  everyone  else, 
except  possibly  one  or  two  of  the  ultra  set. 

Yet  memory  runs  along  and  somehow  resolves  itself 
into  the  perplexities  of  breaking  away  from  social  calls. 
Nothing  seemed  to  boys  of  those  days  more  difficult 
than  to  know  when  to  go  home  of  an  evening  when 
making  a  perfectly  correct  social  parlor-call  on  a  nice 
girl.  Conversation  had  a  way  of  giving  out.  Paper- 
collars  had  a  way  of  growing  tight.  Woolen  stockings 
had  a  way  of  swelling.  Boots  had  a  way  of  tightening, 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES         69 

Cotton  flannel  undergarments  had  a  way  of  itching. 
Hands  had  a  way  of  reddening.  Hair  had  a  way  of 
sticking  up.  Air-tight  stoves  had  a  way  of  making 
for  somnolence  and  nobody  had  invented  a  polite  way 
of  breaking  loose  from  the  circle,  without  danger  of 
falling  over  the  braided  rug. 

0,  I  don't  know — this  paper  collar  had  led  me  afar, 
into  that  dim  past,  replete  with  the  simple  things  that 
somehow  seem  dear  to  me,  as  ever ;  and  not  at  all  laugh- 
able— only  sort  of  sacred.  I  seem  to  see  the  boy  that 
was  myself,  as  you  see  the  boy  or  girl  that  was  your- 
self, as  another  being — as  indeed  he  was.  Of  you 
yet  not  at  all  you !  A  strange,  awkward,  tongue-tied, 
homely  waif  was  he,  and  pity  stirs  you  and  tears  may 
fall  at  memories  that  surround  him.  The  world 
changes  only  in  manner  of  living ;  only  in  regard  to  col- 
lars and  cuffs,  never  in  soul  or  ambition  or  hope  or 
dreams  or  loves.  Tender  about  our  necks  cling  the 
arms  of  them  that  were  of  that  time  and  are  no  more ! 
Soft  thru  the  veil,  come  their  familiar  voices.  Clad  in 
homely  garb,  tho  they  may  have  been,  yet  the  eyes 
are  as  loving,  the  voices  as  tender  and  the  hand  as  soft 
upon  our  brows  as  tho  the  body  had  been  clad  in  the 
fashions  of  today — that  also  will  be  old,  old  fashions 
some  day,  when  we  are  dust. 


ON  "THE  BROOKS  OF  MAINE" 

OES  your  mind  ever  turn,  old  timer,  from 
where  you  may  be  in  some  alien  land,  to 
thoughts  of  the  Maine  brook  that  ran  along 
in  the  old  place  of  your  fathers?  Intervale 
or  woodland,  winding  here  and  there  like  an 
aimless  child,  or  else  bounding  along  on 
business  bent,  it  is  here  today,  just  the  same  as  it  was 
when  you  trudged  it  barefooted,  fishpole  in  hand,  half 
a  century  ago. 


70         JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

I  can  fancy  you,  out  there  in  your  land  of  the  sage, 
cozening  yourself  with  artesian  wells,  windmills,  and 
the  turgid  movement  of  the  water  in  the  irrigation 
ditch,  yet  hearing  the  voices  of  old  brooks  at  home, 
their  whispers  by  day,  their  lullabies  by  night.  The 
Brooks  of  Maine!  Myriad  as  the  stars  are  they,  and 
as  different  from  each  other  as  the  hills  from  which 
they  spring — Katahdin,  cold,  remote,  granitic;  Abram, 
tree-embowered  in  the  clouds;  Bigelow,  bordered  by 
peaceful  farms;  Spencer,  a  shy  creature  of  the  deep 
woods,  shapely  as  the  fount  of  life  itself;  and  thous- 
ands of  lesser  hills,  each  brooding  over  its  water 
sources,  that  tumble  down  to  level  lands  and  thence  go 
meandering  to  the  sea.  A  million  waters  flashing  in 
the  sun  or  winking  in  the  rain ;  hiding  beneath  droop- 
ing trees ;  whitening  over  tiny  cataracts ;  drifting  into 
deep  pools,  where  the  trout  lie,  fanning  the  current; 
breaking  over  the  barriers  of  the  beaver;  wandering 
aside,  into  lagoons  and  eddies,  and  watering  the  shores, 
where  bloom  the  iris  and  the  cat-o-nine-tails. 

It  is  worth  something  to  have  been  born  in  a  land 
like  Maine  that  was  set  up  edge-ways.  Nature  made 
Maine  special  and  to  the  order  of  the  angels  who  adore 
beauty.  The  waters  of  the  sea,  they  cupped  our  har- 
bors, and  the  Lord  thereof,  He  built  the  hills,  that  they 
might  gather  the  snows  that  swirl  over  them  in  our 
majestic  winters  and  that  they  might  also  brood  over 
the  brooks  that  are  born  in  the  first  flush  of  spring. 
Do  you  see  them  ?  They  are  like  a  lace-work  of  silver 
in  a  field  of  crystal  and  emerald!  They  are  like  the 
jeweled  fingers  of  a  beautiful  woman  on  a  plate  of  jade. 
And  when  the  hills  flame,  Nature  stands  aside  and 
smiles  and  says  "Look  at  my  handiwork."  And  all  the 
hosts  of  Heaven  smile  and  are  glad ! 

Here  is  the  old,  old  Maine  brook  that  you  remember. 
It  is  loitering  thru  the  meadow  at  the  foot  of  the  pas- 
ture. It  is  crossed  by  the  old  log  and  the  stepping 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES         71 

stones.  The  cows  have  cropped  its  banks  until  they 
are  as  velvet  lawn.  It  winds  here  and  there  thru  the 
sun-swept  emerald  with  a  thin  line  of  shadow.  And 
away  it  goes  thru  tiny  swimmin'  holes  to  the  bowlders 
and  the  granite  bed  of  the  old  post-road.  And  then  a 
little  farther  on,  it  plunges  into  the  edge  of  the  woods 
and  begins  to  be  a  woodland  stream.  It  here  finds  its 
voice  and  it  is  myriad.  Trees  bend  over  it  and  kiss  its 
running  waters.  It  leaps  over  rocks  and  splashes  into 
small  pools  where  you  may  lean  and  drink.  It  broadens 
into  fairy  bowers  with  mossy  banks.  The  winds  over- 
head fleck  it  with  patches  of  sunlight  and  make  it 
gleam  against  its  half-tone  shadows.  You  may  lie  by 
its  comforting  side;  or  see  blue  skies  in  its  deeps;  or 
commune  with  it  in  the  conversation  of  the  soul.  Or 
you  may  wander  on  to  its  source  and  find  yet  farther  on 
hidden  springs  from  which  it  might  have  sprung  and 
not  half  tried.  You  knew  every  foot  of  it  and  can  fol- 
low it,  in  your  memory,  by  day  or  by  night,  whether 
you  be  in  desert  or  in  the  town. 

Not  until  water  fell  on  earth  could  life  appear. 
Not  until  the  sunlight  came  could  there  be  rainbows 
and  flashing  light  thru  green  boughs.  Ages  passed 
before  brooks  ran  and  clear-petaled  flowers  gemmed 
their  banks.  I  do  not  want  to  set  more  sail  than  we 
can  carry,  but  the  brooks  and  hills  of  Maine  are  sym- 
bols of  a  perfecting  world.  They  have  a  deeper  sig- 
nificance than  mere  running  waters.  Like  the  shad- 
ows that  came  first  as  a  sign  of  a  new  order  of  the 
risen  sun,  first  breaking  thru  the  mists  that 
enshrouded  a  dead  world,  that  it  might  live  again;  so 
the  waters  are  a  part  of  the  same  new  order  and  shall 
endure  as  a  sign  of  the  growth  and  development  of 
God's  plan.  "He  shall  drink  of  the  brook  on  his  way," 
says  the  Psalmist,  "therefore  shall  he  lift  up  his  head. 
Praise  ye  the  Lord." 

So — the  brooks  are  all  here  as  of  old,  Old  Tinier! 


72         JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

The  watcher  in  the  skies  may  see  them  breaking  from 
border  to  coast,  from  North  to  South.  They  sing  by 
day  and  by  night,  all  thru  the  year,  when  free  from 
winter's  bond  and  even  then  beneath  the  ice  and  thru 
the  snow.  We  yet  lie  by  their  banks  and  watch  them 
go  along  their  happy  way.  We  hear  them  in  the  night- 
time, crooning  to  us.  We  go  to  them  by  day  and  are 
refreshed.  Their  waters  are  as  clear  as  crystal  and 
as  sweet  as  the  perfume  of  the  cedars  of  Lebanon. 
We  turn  the  prows  of  our  canoes  into  them,  in  the  sun- 
set hour,  and  watch  the  trout  break  their  still  surfaces. 
We  wander  by  them,  wherever  they  may  lead.  We 
drink  of  them  by  noon-day  and  lie  down  by  them  to 
rest  in  peace  by  the  evening  camp-fire.  They  talk  to 
us ;  they  make  us  glad.  The  beautiful  brooks  of  Maine. 


ON  "OLD-FASHIONED  CELLARS" 

MIND  me  as  I  look  over  the  Thanksgiving  table 
of  those  olden  days  when  the  cellar  was  the 
store-house  of  the  old-fashioned  country-side 
and  when  there  was  no  such  thing  as  celery 
or  salad  or  grapefruit  cocktails,  but  when 
the  dinner  began  with  the  meat  and  ended 
with  the  pie.  Those  were  the  days  when  everything 
was  on  the  table  when  mother  came  in  and  taking  off 
her  apron  and  wiping  her  hands  on  the  kitchen  towel 
hanging  over  behind  the  pantry  door  by  the  pump  in 
the  kitchen  sink  came  along  and  sat  down  like  a  lady 
and  ate  her  dinner  with  the  rest  of  us  and  nobody 
passed  anything  around  the  table  and  it  was  a  decided 
faux  pas  for  any  one  to  leave  his  seat  unless  he  were 
choking  to  death. 

Deep  in  the  cellar-ways  of  those  old-fashioned  win- 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES         73 

ters  were  the  things  on  which  we  lived — never  a  trip  to 
the  store  except  once  a  week  or  so  when  we  went  after 
the  weekly  paper — and  no  f  ol-de-rols  except  the  things 
off  the  farm  stored  in  the  goodly  barrels  of  the  old-time 
country  home.  As  a  boy,  I  doubt  not  that  you  remem- 
ber the  cellar-way,  with  its  barrel  of  buttermilk  at  the 
first  landing;  the  stone  flagging  cool  in  summer  and 
cold  in  winter  where  mother  kept  the  crocks  of  butter 
shining  with  sweat  on  the  outside  of  the  crock ;  the  bar- 
rels of  apples  extending  row  on  row  into  the  distance 
of  the  dimness,  the  barrels  of  salt-pork,  the  strings  of 
red  herring,  the  barrels  of  cider  and  vinegar,  the  kit  of 
salt-mackerel,  the  "kental"  of  fish; the  seckel  pears; the 
russet  apple  barrel  open  for  the  boys,  the  big  tin  cake- 
box  where  mother  kept  cookies — what  a  place;  what 
opulence  and  what  sensible,  good  food  for  a  sensible, 
good  people.  No  dollar  and  a  quarter  candy,  no  cereals, 
no  imported  fruits,  no  cucumbers  in  winter,  no  expen- 
sive melons  from  New  Mexico  at  a  dollar  a  melon — 
simple  food  and  simple  living  and  red-cheeked  children 
around  the  table  with  glad  appetites  and  cheerful  wel- 
come to  the  heavily  laden  plates  as  they  were  passed 
around. 

I  take  the  old-fashioned  cellar  as  a  symbol  of  provi- 
dent life  and  patient,  simple  ways.  In  its  dimness  I 
see  a  primitive  folk  and  an  industrious  and  frugal  citi- 
zenship. Out  of  its  dim  space  arises  fragrance  of  many 
a  happy  hour  and  the  memories  of  people  whose  lives 
were  passed  in  industry  and  who  lie  low  along  the 
grass-grown  sward  on  the  New  England  hills.  I  see 
the  simple  and  serene  country  life — the  low  sweeping 
fields  of  winter  glistening  in  the  December  snows  and 
oft  creaking  to  the  sled-runners  along  the  country 
highways.  I  see  the  schoolhouse  on  the  hill  and  the 
slow  train  of  red-mittened  boys  and  girls  plowing  their 
way  to  the  dim  and  odorous  schoolhouse  thru  whose 
small  windows  streams  the  faint  light  of  the  December 


74         JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

afternoon.  I  see  stone-walls  buried  in  snow,  cows  in 
the  tie-up,  ponds  gleaming  in  ice,  hills  inviting  to  coast- 
ing, starlit  nights  and  dawns  rising  in  peace  to  the 
smoking  of  the  neighbor's  chimney.  I  see  everywhere 
the  contented  and  the  work-a-day  life,  with  its  pains, 
its  tragedies,  its  joys  and  its  rewards;  and  dreaming 
of  the  store-houses  of  our  providence,  I  ask  if  we  are 
doing  better  today  in  the  lives  we  lead  than  our  fathers 
did  in  the  long  ago. 

Evenings  by  the  lamp — what  memories  they  bring 
— ciphering  on  the  kitchen  table  out  of  Greenleaf  s  old 
Arithmetic,  problems  that  our  fathers  had  solved  much 
as  we  did  and  whose  solution  carried  the  tales  of  many 
a  neighborhood  contest  and  many  a  district  dispute. 
Brother's  head  bending  low — he  died  long  ago — sister's 
fair  hair  with  its  golden  braids  on  her  book  before  her ; 
the  old  red  table-cloth ;  the  kettle  singing  on  the  stove ; 
the  snow  blowing  against  the  windows;  the  slow  rote 
of  mother's  rocker  on  the  sitting-room  floor ;  the  rustle 
of  father's  newspaper — a  Weekly,  by  the  way,  the  song 
in  the  chimney,  the  joy  in  the  heart  of  youth. 

It  was  a  fortress  of  love  with  the  food  in  the  cellar. 
It  was  a  self-sustaining,  free  life ;  dependent  on  nothing 
but  the  toil  of  the  hands  and  the  foresight  of  the 
brain,  laying  up  the  food  for  the  household  like  the 
squirrels  and  depending  neither  on  coal-operators  nor 
railroad  brotherhoods;  wheat  from  the  fields;  corn 
meal  from  the  two-acre  lot;  dried  apples  in  the  open 
room,  cider  in  the  cellar  and  plenty  on  the  tables. 

I  have  no  fault  to  find  with  life  now ;  but  the  dis- 
content of  never  having  enough ;  the  slavery  to  things ; 
the  knuckling  to  the  jaded  appetite;  the  cultivation  of 
divided  tastes;  the  truckling  to  children's  peccadillos; 
all  call  to  mind  the  memories  of  that  staid  and  happy 
time  when  the  old-fashioned  cellar  supplied  to  a  simple 
and  frugal  people  the  comfort  and  joy  of  long  and 
peaceful  lives. 


ON  "THE  LITTERED  DESK" 

NE'S  DESK  is  a  companion,  a  reflection  of  the 
man.  When  I  see  a  desk  swept  clean,  fair, 
fleckless,  beautifully  shiny,  the  ink-well  just 
here  and  the  pens  just  there,  the  whole 
expanse  shining  like  a  field  of  ice  under  the 
blazing  sun,  I  expect  its  owner  to  be  a  pre- 
cise business  man,  with  a  pink  in  his  button-hole,  a 
white  edge  to  the  lapel  of  his  vest  and  a  clean  shave 
every  morning.  I  do  not  expect  him  to  be  a  book-lover, 
a  frowsy  editor  or  a  working  lawyer. 

To  me  a  desk  is  as  a  bosom,  on  which  one  rests  his 
head;  a  confidant  to  which  one  appeals;  a  volume  of 
memories ;  a  voice,  inaudible  except  to  the  imagination 
and  speaking  out  of  former  days,  rich  in  solicitude, 
tender  in  affection.  Here  lie  your  vanished  years; 
hereon  sleep  your  dreams  and  your  better  thoughts 
waiting  to  be  aroused  anew.  Here  are  the  mementos 
of  sunny  days  and  winter  days  and  days  when  the  rain 
beat  upon  the  windows  and  wild  winds  shook  the  panes. 
Hereon,  piled  deep  are  relics  of  hours  when  you  have 
been  joyous  and  hours  when  you  have  been  sad.  So,  I 
like  a  desk  to  be  battered,  old  and  friendly;  littered 
with  books  and  clippings  and  hidden  things  about 
which  nobody  knows,  but  myself.  I  like  it  to  have 
about  a  square  foot  of  space  on  it  that  is  empty  swept 
and  garnished,  whereon,  I  may  get  a  rest  for  the  elbow 
and  can  write  all  I  wish  to  say.  Such  space  is  suffi- 
cient. Shakespeare  needed  no  more.  I  like  a  big  desk ; 
for  the  bigger  it  is  the  more  you  can  pile  on  it  and  the 
higher  you  can  build  the  pyramids.  It  must  be  a  flat- 
topped  desk.  A  roll-topped  desk  is  an  abomination  of 
artificiality.  One  look  at  a  roll-topped  desk  is  enough 
to  kill  the  finest  train  of  thought  that  ever  wandered 
into  my  poor,  benighted  system.  I  like  a  big,  flat- 
topped  desk  pushed  into  a  corner  so  that  I  can  lean  the 
lovely  accumulation  against  the  wall.  I  like  it  also,  so 


76         JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

that  one  can  put  things  underneath  it,  to  dig  them  out 
later  when  one  has  nothing  else  to  do. 

Can  you  tell  me  what  starts  a  train  of  thought? 
Perhaps  no  one  can  exactly  tell  at  all  times,  but  it  is 
certain  that  a  bare-topped  desk  with  never  an  associa- 
tion about  it,  rarely  can  do  such  service.  But  a  scrap 
of  paper,  a  newspaper  clipping,  a  book  laid  upon  the 
littered  desk  may  do  it.  You  laid  it  there  at  such  an 
hour  on  such  a  day.  Possibly,  at  the  time  you  put  it 
there,  it  was  snowing,  brightly,  outside,  in  great  white 
flakes,  that  recalled  a  day  in  boyhood's  spring  when  the 
sap  was  flowing  and  you  loitered  along  the  way  with  a 
red-cheeked  girl.  In  your  mind,  you  say,  "the  old  sap- 
orchard,  some  fine  day  I  will  write  about  that."  It 
is  usually  some  tangle  that  connects  up  with  the 
intangible.  The  littered  desk  has  always  its  ghosts  of 
yesterdays  and  its  suggestions  of  tomorrows.  It  treas- 
ures not  clippings  or  favorite  books  buried  under 
masses  of  inconsequentials,  but  trams  of  thought.  If 
you  dig  deep  enough  you  will  find  them.  Marcus  Aure- 
lius  may  be  loafing  away  under  Thoreau ;  and  Boswell 
may  be  under  his  dearest  enemy,  Tom  Macaulay,  and 
there  may  be  vagrant  verse,  unfinished  manuscript,  old 
friends  interrupted  at  half  opened  doors  of  thought  and 
still  waiting  on  the  threshold.  Listen  to  them  in  the 
silence  of  the  twilight  rooms.  The  firelight  plays  and 
there  is  a  sound  almost  of  whispering  from  the  soul  of 
the  littered  desk. 

I  do  not  urge  habits  of  untidyness.  I  do  not  say 
that  an  unlittered  desk  is  any  royal  road  to  anything; 
but  I  do  say  that  whomsoever  depends  on  a  littered 
desk  should  be  indulged  in  his  idosyncrasy.  He  should 
not  be  disturbed  in  his  domain  of  dreams  and  peace. 
He  should  retain  its  pyramid  of  papers,  books,  clippings 
and  trifles  if  they  please  him.  Let  no  one  touch  them 
at  his  peril.  Let  no  mere  woman  come  housecleaning 
into  this  museum  of  dependencies.  He  alone  knows 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES         77 

what  it  means  to  him.  A  good  woman,  cleaning  house, 
threw  Sir  Richard  Burton's  "Scented  Garden"  into  the 
fire  and  the  world  lost  a  book,  which  perhaps  it  could 
do  as  well  without ;  yet  which  it  still  weeps  for  as  the 
fruitage  of  the  lifetime  of  this  strange  man.  What- 
soever passes  from  it  by  true  development  into  the  life 
or  the  thought  of  the  owner  of  the  littered  desk  goes 
into  being  elsewhere.  Thus  it  is  treasury  and  proving 
ground — to  be  left  alone  by  the  hands  of  others  than 
his  who  is  responsible  for  it. 

Many  people  come  into  my  office  and  sniff  at  my 
littered  desk.  They  do  not  understand.  Give  me  time 
and  I  can  find  anything  on  my  desk — except  money. 
It  loses  nothing ;  it  preserves  much ;  it  creates  all  that 
can  be  created  by  me.  It  is  mine  and  mine  alone,  the 
littered  desk. 


ON  "MY  GRANDFATHER'S  SYNTHETIC 
WAGON" 


Y  GRANDFATHER  was  a  ship-carpenter  and 
as  my  father  used  to  say  "was  a  fast  work- 
man but  some  of  his  work  was  cussed 
rough."  He  lived  to  be  88  years  old  and  in 
the  last  days  of  his  retired  life  he  still  prac- 
ticed the  arts  of  carpentry,  much  as  the  poet 
Horace  wrote  poetry  on  his  Sabine  farm.  In  other 
words,  it  was  grandfather's  habit  to  pick  up  a  wagon 
spoke  and  surround  it  with  a  wagon  and  then  put  out 
a  sign  in  our  front  yard  labeled  "For  Sail  or  to  Swop." 
Not  that  Horace  ever  "swopped"  wagons,  but  then  my 
grandfather's  name  was  not  Horace,  but  Reuben.  I 
want  to  say  right  here  and  now,  in  justice  to  the  liter- 
ary attainments  of  my  grandfather,  that  he  did  not 


78         JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

write  the  signs,  but  that  they  were  written,  composed 
and  set  up  by  our  farm-boy,  Albert  Niles,  who  pre- 
ferred that  style  of  orthography.  And  my  grand- 
father evidently  thought  that  the  spelling  lent 
piquancy  to  the  exhibit.  Albert  often  showed  further 
originality  by  writing  the  letter  "S"  back  to,  which 
gave  the  exhibit  a  certain  rakish  look. 

Grandfather  was  a  synthetic  wagonist.  Perhaps 
you  do  not  undertsand  me,  but  that's  what  he  was. 
He  could  take  the  spokes  of  one  wagon  and  the  rims  of 
another,  the  body  of  another  and  the  thills  of  another 
and  make  a  perfectly  good  wagon  out  of  them.  Where 
they  did  not  join  exactly,  grandfather  put  in  putty. 
He  was  the  finest  puttier  in  Sagadahoc  County.  He 
worked  in  a  little  red  carpenter  shop  in  the  front  yard 
with  a  blue  door — I  mean  that  the  shop  had  the  blue 
door,  not  the  front  yard.  Here  he  kept  his  putty. 
We  boys  always  had  all  the  putty  we  wanted  and  a  boy 
needs  a  lot  of  putty,  if  he  can  get  it.  It  is  good  in  bean- 
blowers.  Grandfather  never  wasted  anything,  espe- 
cially paint.  All  of  the  paint  he  ever  had  he  kept  mix- 
ing right  over  again.  Thus  he  never  had  to  buy  any 
paint,  for  if  a  painter  keeps  right  on  mixing  what  he 
has  left,  he  will,  of  course,  always  have  paint,  for  how 
could  he  mix  it  if  he  didn't  have  some.  He  had 
another  habit  as  a  painter — he  always  mixed  the  paint- 
skin  right  into  the  paint.  I  have  seen  him  concocting 
a  new  color  out  of  his  various  belongings.  He  had  lost 
the  first  joint  of  his  forefinger  and  he  used  to  try  the 
color  on  the  stub. 

Of  course,  it  was  always  a  matter  of  conjecture 
what  color  would  result  after  grandfather  had  mixed 
up  a  batch  of  paint  for  one  of  his  synthetic  wagons. 
He  might  get  a  delicate  mauve  one  time  and  deep  pea- 
green  another.  I  think  pea-green  was  his  best  bet.  If 
you  mix  a  lot  of  paints,  pea-green  will  generally  result 
with  accent  on  the  pea.  But  I  have  seen  wagons  in  our 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES         79 

yard  that  showed  designs  that  no  catalog  could  name — 
reds  of  variegated  hue  with  blue  wheels.  And  as 
grandfather  never  threw  away  a  paint  skin,  their  glist- 
ening residue  shone  on  the  surface  like  golden  sequins 
on  a  lady's  gown. 

We  had  a  man  in  our  town  named  Fred  Adams  who 
ran  a  stock  farm  and  who  had  a  pace-making  runner 
named  "Foxy"  that  could  run  a  mile  around  2.10,  to 
wagon.  Adams  was  coming  by  our  place  and  he  saw 
one  of  grandfather's  synthetic  wagons  standing  there 
"for  sail"  and  he  bought  it;  hitched  in  Foxy  and 
started  for  home.  Foxy  moved  along  briskly  in  his 
new  variegated  wagon,  all  going  smoothly  until  about 
a  mile  from  home  when  a  piece  of  grandfather's  putty 
flew  out  and  struck  him  in  the  rump.  Foxy  thought 
it  a  fleck  of  the  whip  and  he  leaped  to  "a  fast  mile." 
The  disintegration  of  "Pa's"  (we  always  called  him 
"Pa")  wagon  began.  You  could  not  use  one  of  Pa's 
wagons  over-roughly.  They  were  not  built  for  any- 
thing but  a  "sail."  My  cousin  Willard,  who  lives  in 
Wellesley,  Mass.,  says  he  saw  the  incident  and  he 
declares  that  a  piece  of  hard  putty  clipped  a  piece  out 
of  Adams'  ear ;  a  spoke  came  out  and  hit  "Foxy"  back 
of  his  neck  and  then  the  h<3rse  hit  the  high  spots.  The 
wagon  bumped  into  the  gutter,  the  tail  board  jumped 
out ;  a  screw  worked  out  of  whip-socket ;  the  whip  went 
by  the  board;  the  air  filled  with  spokes;  tire  and  rim 
rolled  off  the  nigh  hind  wheel — the  flying  parts  urging 
Foxy  to  new  endeavor.  When  Adams  came  within  200 
yards  of  the  barn,  both  rims  were  gone  from  the  rear 
wheels  and  the  wagon  was  revolving  on  the  hubs. 
Adams  was  holding  to  Foxy  and  the  front  wheels  were 
going,  but  the  wagon  was  evaporating  at  the  rate  of  a 
pound  of  putty  to  the  second.  When  Foxy  hit  the  sill 
of  the  barn  door  there  was  the  final  resolution  of  the 
synthetic  wagon  into  its  component  parts,  but  Adams 
went  into  the  box  stall  on  his  belly,  hanging  to  the  reins 


80         JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

with  the  wagon  tire  of  the  front  wheel  around  his  neck 
and  a  wagon  spoke  in  each  pants  pocket.  And  that 
was  all  that  was  left  of  Pa's  one-hoss  shay. 

I  understand  that  grandfather  took  the  remains 
back  and  built  twelve  wagons  out  of  them — all  synthet- 
ically. A  wagon  was  a  wagon  in  "them  days." 


ON  "BEING  GRAND  HIOSCYAMUS" 


T'S  WORTH  while— for  some  people— to  be 
Right  Worthy,  Noble,  Grand,  Sublime,  Impe- 
rial, Most  Excellent  and  Illustrious  Chief 
Regents. 

It's  an  honor — of  course  it  is.  The 
office  itself  says  so ;  the  confidence  reposed  in 
you  by  those  who  wouldn't  do  the  same  work  at  any 
price,  says  so.  It's  a  tribute  of  baldric,  jewel,  glave, 
censer,  turban,  crown.  It  throbs  with  every  heart- 
beat of  adulation.  It  sets  you  on  a  throne,  made  of 
real  brussels.  It  puts  a  crown  on  your  head — in  archi- 
tecture a  bean-pot  or  an  inverted  cuspidor,  done  in  red 
satin.  It  strings  a  chain  of  brass  around  your  neck 
carrying  an  emblem  weighing  three  pounds  and  calcu- 
lated to  make  a  country  constable's  nickel  badge  turn 
green  with  envy.  A  wholly  respectable,  red-haired, 
freckle-faced,  commonplace  man  invested  as  Grand 
Illustrious  Pontificabilus  of  the  Order  of  Eastern 
Nannygoats,  frequently  by  force  of  circumstances  is 
forced  into  the  lime  ligh£  and  when  thus  arrayed  as 
an  oriental  despot,  brass-trimmed  from  toe  to  crown, 
he  looks  the  limit. 

I  recall  seeing  one  of  them  once,  wearing  an  ermine 
robe  of  Royal  Magnificence,  who,  though  he  might  have 
been  graceful  in  overalls  pumping  a  handcar,  was  badly 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES         81 

distrait  as  King.  And  I  came  to  pity  him ;  for  he  fell 
over  his  own  Royal  Jiblets ;  stubbed  his  toe  on  his  title ; 
banged  headfirst  into  his  turban;  upset  the  Royal 
Arcanum;  tipped  over  the  Oriental  Obsequies;  right 
obliqued  into  the  Perfumed  Censer,  backed  up  and 
clashed  down  the  Three-edged  Sword ;  got  his  right  leg 
poked  up  through  his  baldric ;  stuck  his  toe  in  his  left 
ear;  got  his  right  arm  indefinitely  mixed  up  with  the 
ermine  interlining,  and  finally  opened  his  ceremonial 
from  behind  the  breastworks  by  yelling :  "For  the  love 
of  God,  will  some  of  you  fellers  come  up  here  and  pick 
me  out  of  the  ruins !" 

This  man  was  never  built  for  Kinging  it. 

He  never  was  a  real,  genuine,  natural  Royal  Ponti- 
ficabilus.  If  he  had  been  he'd  never  have  known  that 
he  was  out  of  order. 

The  real  Royal  Pontifex  stomps  around  regardless, 
and  thinks  he  is  real  good.  He  slaughters  the  King's 
English  in  a  beautiful  tremolo,  and  looks  to  see  the 
crowd  sit  breathless  at  the  spectacle.  He  says,  "If  the 
candidates  will  now  approach  the  altar,  I'll  have  the 
chaplain  administrate  the  oath."  If  he  happens  to  fall 
off  the  throne  in  anti-climax,  he  looks  it  up  in  the  ritual 
to  see  if  it  jarred  any  of  the  "Sublimes"  out  of  him. 
His  jewels  clink  when  he  walks  like  the  harness  on  a 
high-stepper.  For  the  time  he  is  indeed  Royal. 
Ermine  is  what  he  wears  when  he  saws  wood  and  does 
the  chores  at  home.  The  baby  has  ermine  bedclothes. 
His  wife  is  Grand  Royal  Lady  of  the  Order  of  the  Per- 
fect Sisters.  They  all  have  "past- jewels,"  unostenta- 
tiously displayed  on  the  parlor  what-not.  You  can't 
get  into  their  front  entry  for  the  way  the  plumes  tickle 
your  nose.  He  wears  seven  badges  on  his  coat  front, 
and  his  wife  pins  up  the  baby's  didies  with  maltese 
crosses.  He  has  a  door-mat  with  a  camel  on  it,  and  the 
Pyramids  of  Egypt  are  on  his  crockery.  You  can't  jar 
one  of  these  Knights  of  the  Royal  Pontifex,  whom 


82         JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

Heaven  hath  divinely  made  for  office;  for  does  he  not 
stand  beautiful  under  the  Canopy  and  can  he  not 
deliver  the  Ritual  in  a  basso-profundo  voice  with  fur- 
trimmings  !  On  him  impinge  honors  naturally.  He  is 
delegate  in  perpetuam  and  has  influence  with  Grand 
Bodies!  He  marches  at  the  head  of  the  Procession, 
behind  the  band;  stepping  high;  plumes  before  and 
behind,  and  there  isn't  a  bit  of  doubt  that  he  knows 
how  to  install  the  officers  in  every  kind  of  a  lodge,  from 
the  Sublime  Cheshire  Cats  to  the  Oriental  Oligarchical 
Order  of  Oboes. 

Yes,  there  are  men  built  for  office.  And,  when  you 
find  one,  he  somehow  seems  early  to  be  aware  of  it. 
No  tardy  constituency  is  permitted  to  keep  him  back. 
Ever  genial,  a  good  handshaker,  ready  of  approval,  he 
gravitates  to  the  throne.  If  he  can't  anything  better 
he'll  take  Illustrious  Outside  Snow-shoveler — so  long  as 
it  is  illustrious. 

The  typical  officeholder  weighs  over  230  pounds, 
most  of  the  weight  below  the  chin.  The  larger  his 
waist  measure  the  greater  his  need  of  office.  He  will 
have  a  red  face  and  features  like  the  mild  and  reminis- 
cent Hereford.  Early  in  life,  he  begins  to  "belong." 
All  orders  thrust  honors  on  him  so  as  to  get  him 
through  quick  and  out  of  the  way,  for  they  know  he 
must  have  them.  After  he  has  gone  through  he 
declines  to  get  through.  Everything  in  the  Illustrious 
Secret  Caduza  knows  him.  When  he  isn't  Illustrious, 
he  is  driving  a  hack. 

I  have  been  an  office-holder. 

Once  I  installed  officers  of  a  secret  body.  It  was 
winter.  The  stove  glimmered  fitfully,  and  the  jewel 
about  my  neck  froze  the  marrow  in  the  spinal  column. 

"We  are  about  to  proceed  to  the  installation,  to  be 
performed  by  our  eminent  friend  and  visitor,  the  Su- 
preme District  Deputy  Grand  Hypothenuse,  whom  now 
I  present  to  you,"  said  the  presiding  officer. 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES         83 

"My  friends,"  said  I,  "I  am — that  is,  I  was,  and  I 
daresay  you  will  agree  with  me.  It  is  not  often  that  I 
am,  I  am  sure.  If  it  were  a  fact,  I  am  convinced  that 
you  would.  In  short,  if  we  take  it  seriatim,  we  shall 
discover  that  it  is  as  I  said.  The  session  is  open,  and  if 
the  Interlocutor  will  hit  the  man  on  his  right  with  the 
gavel  and  will  pass  me  the  constitution  I  will  serve  it, 
and  if  any  lady  or  gent  would  like  a  second  piece,  he 
may  have  it.  Ice-cream  will  also  be  found  in  the  ante- 
room." 

Some  called  it  "suspension  of  mental  equilibrium." 
But  I  knew  differently.  It  was  due  to  mixing  up  the 
pages  of  my  address — part  lodge  work,  part  report  of 
a  nigger  minstrel  show. 

But  it  convinced  me.  I  never  was  born  to  the  pot- 
hat.  No  Imperial  Potentate  in  mine.  A  true  son  of 
the  Purple  Cross  would  have  made  that  speech  with- 
out a  falter  and  would  have  made  it  moving  and  sub- 
lime instead  of  ridiculous,  as  did  I.  Of  what  concern  to 
him  are  the  words?  Mere  nothings!  Vain  symbols. 
It's  the  Voice!  the  Gesture!  the  Presence!!  Yea,  the 
very  Girth  of  the  Abdomen. 

So  there  be  them  that  wear  the  puppet  crown! 
And  there  be  them  that  stand  aside  and  watch! 

And  there  be  them,  also,  that  rejoice  with  them  who 
pull  out  the  toys  and  play  awhile  and  put  them  back 
without  a  tear  after  the  play  is  over! 


ON  "THE  COW" 

HE  COW  does  not  resemble  the  pump;  altho 
there  once  was  confusion,  on  this  point, 
before  the  discovery  of  butter-fat.  The  cow 
has  four  legs  and  the  pump  has  only  one. 
The  subsequent  leg  of  the  cow  on  the  right 
hand  side  is  elastic  and  can  reach  farther 
than  the  arm  of  the  law.  The  cow  also  has  a  tail  with 
a  fly-slapper  on  the  end  of  it.  This  she  uses  to  wrap 
around  the  neck  of  the  freckled  milkman  and  hold  him 
while  she  kicks  his  union  suit  off  of  him. 

A  cow  is  always  associated  with  cold  weather,  in  my 
mind,  because  I  never  seem  to  remember  milking  a  cow 
when  it  was  warm  weather.  Sitting  on  a  cold  milk- 
stool,  on  the  port  side  of  a  cow,  in  a  frosty  morning 
and  extracting  the  milk  in  frosty  streams,  is  as  far 
from  interpreting  Tennyson  as  anything  I  ever  did. 
Mephistopheles  had  horns  and  a  tail.  The  only  thing 
he  has  on  the  cow  is  that  he  did  not  give  milk.  And 
Mephistopheles  generally  lived  in  a  warmer  climate. 
If  you  ever  milked  a  cow  in  below-zero  weather  you 
know  that  you  had  to  be  tender  to  the  cow.  If  there  is 
a  Hell,  there  will  be  cows  to  milk  in  it,  in  winter.  I  pre- 
fer some  other  job,  in  Heaven. 

There  is  a  tradition  that  the  cow  is  a  mild  and  gen- 
tle beast  of  absolutely  moral  conviction  and  general 
ascetic  practice.  I  have  my  doubt.  The  cow  is  a  nat- 
ural born  thief.  She  rather  steal  than  eat.  She 
rather  go  out  and  eat  Monday's  washing  than  feed  on 
clover.  You  give  a  cow  the  slightest  chance  to  accum- 
ulate the  education  and  she  will  unbutton  the  lock  on  a 
six-barred  gate  and  eat  all  of  the  green  peas  before 
you  can  put  on  your  cowhides  and  get  there  prepara- 
tory to  giving  her  a  kick  in  the  rump.  I  have  seen 
more  agile  farmers  chasing  cows  than  I  ever  saw 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES         85 

chasing  reform.  I  have  seen  my  grandfather  leap 
over  the  wood-pile;  scale  a  ten-foot  barnyard  fence; 
shoot  the  rapids  of  the  babbling  brook;  shin  an  elm 
tree  that  skirted  the  meadow  and  run  forty  yards  in 
four  seconds  to  drive  the  cow  out  of  the  strawberry 
patch,  all  of  the  while  roaring  like  a  steam  siren  and 
using  language  that  would  have  kept  him  in  the  seats 
of  the  anxious  at  the  protracted  meeting,  if  I  had  been 
inclined  to  tell  on  him. 

No !  I  do  not  believe  that  the  morals  of  the  cow  are 
any  better  than  those  of  some  profiteers.  She  lacks 
sympathy.  She  needs  altogether  too  much  attention. 
What  the  next  generation  needs  is  a  breed  of  cows  that 
will  walk  into  the  dairy ;  back  up  to  the  milk  pail  and 
release  the  milk  without  urging.  We  want  an  auto- 
matic, self-milking,  patent  cow.  The  present  style  is 
old-fasliioned — very  antiquated.  All  of  this  present 
race  of  non-self-starting  cows  ought  to  be  killed  and 
sent  to  the  saw  mill  and  sawed  up  into  veal.  I  know 
that  there  are  some  men  who  love  cows  and  I  suppose 
they  inherit  it.  It  is  lucky  that  it  is  so ;  there  are  some 
men  who  take  to  lion-taming. 

I  always  tell  a  story  of  Sim  Haskell  at  this  point. 
I  have  told  it  twice  before  in  these  writings,  but  it  is 
too  good  to  leave  out  now.  He  visited  a  neighbor  who 
had  a  cow  in  the  stall.  Alongside  of  the  cow  were 
many  clubs,  broken  pitchfork  handles  and  other  signs 
of  disturbance,  while  the  cow's  hide  was  so  full  of 
pitchfork  holes  that  it  looked  like  a  colander.  The 
cow's  owner  came  along  and  looked  at  the  cow.  "I 
don't  suppose,  Mr.  Haskell,"  said  he,  "that  anybody 
but  me  could  get  along  with  that  cow." 

A  cow  always  knows  when  a  boy  is  dressed  up  and 
ready  to  go  to  to  the  lyceum.  At  least  the  old-fash- 
ioned cow  did.  She  would  look  around  at  the  boy,  with 
his  clean  paper-collar  and  his  red  necktie  and  seem  to 
say  "Ha!  Ha!  sonny,  I  perceive."  And  when  the 


86         JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

milking  was  nearly  done  and  the  calm  of  the  evening 
was  coming  down  and  not  a  sound  disturbed  the  sacred 
stillness  of  the  spot,  she  would  extend  her  right  hind 
foot  with  a  circular  movement  that  covered  more  than 
two  acres,  swish  her  tail,  hump  her  back;  step  in  the 
milk-pail;  heave  a  sigh  that  sent  her  left  rump-bone 
up  into  the  haymow  and  come  down  on  the  wreck  of  a 
type  of  manly  beauty  that  would  have  made  Apollo 
weep.  I  have  seen  boys  emerge  from  one  of  these 
bovine  upheavals  looking  worse  than  a  tramp.  I  have 
seen  a  boy  reach  up  and  batter  a  milk  pail  on  the  snout 
of  a  cow  and  wallop  the  rear  guard  of  a  grade  Here- 
ford beastie  with  tears  in  his  eyes  and  holes  in  his 
best  suit. 

I  recognize  the  value  of  cow's  milk — altho  I  never 
use  it.  I  recognize  the  dependence  of  the  race,  on  cows. 
I  like  them  abstractedly.  But  I  have  associated  with 
them  intimately  all  I  ever  care  to  do.  And  I  don't  care 
who  knows  it. 


ON  "SPRING  IN  CITIES' 


T  COMES  around  the  corner,  suddenly,  like  a 
romping  child  and  catches  a  town  in  furs  and 
great  coats.  Only  the  shops  seem  to  have 
been  aware  of  it  and  these  are  gay  with 
fashions  that  are  half -naked,  as  tho  it  were 
mid-summer  that  they  expected,  not  spring, 
with  woolen  underwear  beneath  its  tunic  and  its  smile. 
Shameless  are  the  shops;  with  fashions  quite 
nude,  like  Aphrodite  of  Pierre  Louys,  or  stories  in 
French  in  Pierre  Mille.  Under  scarlet  lamps,  under 
amber  and  jade  and  emerald,  they  lie  in  wait  for  Spring 
and  Eve,  as  tho  this  were  the  Garden  and  the  Serpent 
were  not  numb  with  a  winter's  cold.  Bare,  very  bare, 
will  Eve  be  this  summer  if  these  be  fashions,  and  here 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES         87 

in  Boston  it  is  "Fashion  Week,"  so  called.  Poor  child! 
Nothing  but  spangles  and  suggestions  to  cover  her 
nakedness.  Yet  she  seems  enraptured  and  with  her 
sisters  stands  fifty  deep,  exclaiming  "Ah !"  and  "Oh !" 
at  these  dresses ;  at  the  trifles  called  "lingerie"  and  at 
these  exhibits  of  hosiery  and  these  flaunting  feathers 
that  pretend  to  have  been  the  tail-feathers  of  birds  of 
exotic  plumage. 

It  was  in  Washington,  earlier  in  the  week,  that 
spring  first  suggested  itself  to  me.  There  had  been 
Saturday  and  Sunday  when  all  the  chimneys  of  Boston 
blew  down,  when  traffic  ceased  from  the  snow-blizzard, 
when  grocers  declined  to  deliver  even  the  beans,  when 
the  codfish  was  more  sacred  than  usual  because  un- 
touched of  human  hands,  and  here  a  day  later,  Mon- 
day, in  Washington,  it  was  a  picture  of  sunshine  on 
bare  pavements  and  the  Stars  and  Stripes  over  the 
Capitol,  rippling  in  the  strong  white  light  of  March. 
Somehow,  a  new  note  crept  into  life!  It  was  as  tho, 
after  all,  another  dawn  were  at  hand,  another  year 
were  in  the  spring  and  all  were  well  with  the  world! 
There  were  songs  of  early  birds  in  the  parks ;  signs  of 
spring  bonnets  on  the  pave  and  symptoms  of  open  cars 
in  the  traffic.  One  felt  that  perhaps  there  might  be 
resurrections  hereabout,  "a  touch  of  Edens  long  for- 
got" even  tho  the  white-throat  sparrow's  song  was  not 
louder  than  the  debate  on  the  League  of  Nations.  Yet 
even  the  winter  of  that  discontent  seems  to  be  passing 
and  the  few  weary  senators  on  the  democratic  side  who 
cling  to  the  Wilsonian  apron-strings,  seem  to  find  hope 
of  Spring  in  the  steady  onward  march  of  reservation 
after  reservation. 

Back  here  in  Boston  Wednesday!  And  Spring 
seems  to  have  come  up  with  us,  out  of  the  South,  even 
with  the  Federal  Express.  It  comes,  in  town,  differ- 
ently from  what  it  comes  in  the  country.  Here,  the 
Spring  conies  first  in  the  raiment;  there,  in  the  appear- 


88         JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

ance  of  the  folk,  whereas  Spring  in  the  country  comes 
first  out  of  doors  and  never  in  the  raiment  of  the 
country  folk.  In  our  New  England  rural  life,  Spring 
says  "I  am  here"  first  in  the  little  song  the  South  wind 
sings  on  the  sunny  side  of  the  house,  in  the  honey- 
combing of  snow-drifts;  in  the  bluer  sky  and  in  a 
languor  of  early  March.  We,  ourselves,  respond  but 
slowly,  quite  patient,  having  little  to  do ;  no  fashions  to 
follow ;  no  Spring  garments  to  don. 

But  in  the  city  the  worldly  ones  first  say  "It  is 
Spring."  And  such  blossoms!  Every  flower  of  the 
field  is  in  the  shops ;  the  violets  lie  in  banks  of  blue ;  the 
jonquils  in  their  yellow  gold ;  the  pale  narcissi ;  the  but- 
tercup and  the  marguerites  and  sweet  peas  until  you 
can  smell  them  thru  the  window-panes.  The  corners 
of  the  street,  out  of  the  winds,  are  gay  with  flowers  on 
the  stands;  the  hurdy-gurdy  throbs  in  the  distance; 
the  streets  are  thronged  with  folk ;  the  men  are  out  of 
furs  and  ulsters  and  sporting  light  top-coats  and 
boutonnieres ;  the  shops — but  I  have  said — how  gay ! 
And  Boston  Common  begins  to  stick  its  head  up  thru 
the  snow  and  the  Common  cross-walks  to  be  traveled; 
and  thin  patches  of  water  to  show  upon  the  pond  and 
the  birds  are  flocking. 

I  have  lingered  much  today  here,  idly,  watching 
Spring.  She  is  an  old  friend  and  growing  older  but  not 
less  lovely.  I  find  peculiar  satisfaction  in  a  more  dis- 
tant regard  than  usual.  One  Spring,  more  or  less, 
interests  me  little,  nowadays.  Thus  regarding  it, 
negatively,  one  can  rejoice  in  the  peculiarly  responsive 
welcome  that  cities  give  to  it.  They  know  nothing  of 
the  great  panorama  that  our  New  England  hills  are  to 
show  this  year  above  all  others ;  the  mad  rush  of  waters 
along  our  great  Maine  rivers  from  this  unusual  body 
of  snow ;  the  way  the  brooks  break  their  seals ;  the  way 
birds  come  and  the  beavers  come  out;  and  the  wood- 
chuck  emerges  and  life  stirs  at  root  of  the  leaf  of  grass. 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES        89 

All  they  know  is — something  has  come  to  the  human 
heart  much  as  we  know  that  it  cometh  to  the  hills. 
And  here  today  about  me  it  shows,  in  these  shop  win- 
dows that  beat  all  the  colors  of  the  rainbow  by  about 
ten  thousand  tints;  in  the  smiles  on  the  faces  of  the 
folk  in  the  first  touch  of  that  Presence  which  spells 
resurrection  and  reviving  of  the  world. 

It  is  an  old  story,  but  yet  rather  new,  if  we  but 
think  so.  It  would  be  a  very  sad  and  unfair  world  to 
some  of  us,  if  this  Spring  in  Town  as  well  as  in  Country 
did  not  indicate  a  very  general  and  specific  plan,  a 
mightier  Springtime  than  even  this — one  yet  to  come, 
that  will  waken  even  the  poor  shriveled  hearts  and 
worn  bodies  from  which  long  since  we  have  thought  all 
earthly  sense  of  Spring  itself,  had  gone.  The  spirit 
quickeneth — yea!  the  spirit  of  Spring. 


ON  "TAINT  THE  PIP  AN*  TAINT 
THE  FLU!" 

IN'T  FELT  RIGHT  fer  a  week  er  two;  sorter 
cranky,  restless  an'  blue;  don't  do  nothin'  I 
oughter  do ;  ain't  got  the  pip  an'  ain't  got  the 
flu;  jest  feel  sad  an'  sometimes  mad  an'  then 
agin,  all-fired  bad. 

Food  don't  taste  just  zactly  right;  toss 
around  a  lot  at  night;  don't  wanter  set  still  an'  don't 
wanter  walk ;  don't  wanter  read  an'  don't  wanter  talk ; 
hate  ter  be  erlone;  an'  then  agin,  don't  want  no 
neighbors  comin'  in!  Set  there!  Nothin'  I  wanter 
do ;  ain't  got  the  pip  an'  ain't  got  the  flu. 

What's  the  matter,  I  can't  see ;  jest  ez  restless  ez  I 
kin  be.  Ain't  got  no  int'rest  left  in  me;  nothin'  I'd 
give  a  rap  ter  see;  ain't  got  no  fever;  heat  ain't  riz. 
Ain't  got  no  rheumatiz.  Back  don't  ache;  ain't  got  no 


90         JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

cough;  nothin'  thet's  likely  ter  take  me  off;  jest  set 
here,  don't  wanter  do  a  gol-dern  thing  I'm  useter  do; 
don't  wanter  read ;  don't  wanter  talk ;  can't  set  still  an' 
don't  wanter  walk;  jest  set  right  here  an'  feel  so  blue; 
ain't  got  the  pip  an'  ain't  got  the  flu. 

Seem's  ter  me  if  the  geese  ud  come,  I'd  feel  some 
better ;  I  would,  by  snum.  Ef  I  could  only  hear  a  crow, 
pr'aps  'twould  help  the  feelin'  go.  Mebbe  that's  the 
matter  with  me;  world  ain't  no  wise  onery,  when  the 
soft  wind  drips  the  eaves  an'  the  trees  put  out  their 
leaves.  Mebbe  what  I  want  for  mine,  ain't  nothin'  in 
the  doctor's  line;  but  jest  sumthin'  on  the  wing;  sum- 
thin'  that  can  fit  an'  sing;  ice  a-breakin',  brooks  that 
rair;  mists  a-risin'  over  there;  mountains  far-off 
standin'  blue,  jest  like  as  they  useter  do;  bees  a-hum- 
min'  soft  an'  low;  winds  that  loaf  erlong,  you  know; 
brown  spots  bigger  than  your  hand,  showin'  on  your 
pastur-land.  Sa-a-a-y!  I  reckon  that  ud  do;  hain't  got 
no  pip !  Hain't  got  no  flu ! 

Mebbe  I  could  crack  a  smile,  ef  I  could  go  an'  fish 
erwhile;  an'  loaf  a  day  by  a  laffin'  stream  an'  set  an' 
whistle  an'  stretch  an'  dream,  an'  think  an'  larf  an'  roll 
an'  smoke  an'  never  do  a  gol  darn  stroke,  an'  smell  the 
vi-lets  in  the  grass,  an'  hear  the  wild  birds  as  they  pass, 
an'  hear  the  voices  of  the  trees,  an'  wash  my  whiskers 
in  the  breeze,  an'  see  the  red  fox  gaze  erbout  an'  ketch 
a  glimpse  of  the  woodchuck's  snout,  an'  watch  the 
clouds  as  my  old  pipe  curls  an'  cast  a  fly  where  the 
water  whirls,  an'  be  ez  lazy,  fat  an'  free  as  a  yaller- 
striped  bumblebee. 

Hain't  got  no  pip  an'  hain't  got  no  flu !  All  I  need 
is  a  day  er  two  far  away  from  the  haunts  of  men,  where 
I  kin  be  a  boy  agen.  Winter  is  an  awful  drain,  on  a 
feller's  fishin'-brain.  Makes  a  feller  sorter  pine  f er  the 
wettin'  of  a  line;  drefful  weary /here  erbout,  when  he 
thinks  of  jumpin'  trout;  seems  as  tho  this  very  thing 
came  ter  me  erlong  last  spring;  felt  right  mean  fer  a 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES         91 

day  er  two ;  awful  sollum,  sad  an*  blue,  'twan't  the  pip 
and  t'wan't  the  flu;  jest  that  restless-like  an*  mean 
longin'  fer  a  larfin'  stream.  Gosh!  I  guess  I'll  turn 
erbout  an'  go  an'  git  my  tackle  out!  Glad  I  know  jest 
what  ter  do.  'Tain't  the  pip  an'  'tain't  the  flu. 


ON  "FATHER" 

H  FATHER,  how  can  you !"  How  many  a  dad 
has  heard  this  as  he  has  come  down  stairs, 
dolled  in  his  best  to  attend  some  family  func- 
tion and  has  met  the  mild  reproof  of  a 
daughter's  voice  and  eyes  at  his  get-up. 

Father  straightens  up;  recalls  the  time 
when  he  was  considered  something  of  a  good  looker 
and  then  goes  over  and  looks  at  himself  in  the  glass. 
He  is  bald-headed,  perhaps !  Possibly  he  has  a  bunch 
of  whiskers  under  his  chin  that  waggle  when  he  talks. 
His  best  suit  is  a  Prince  Albert  cut  out  with  a  circular 
saw  by  a  man  who  fell  at  the  first  battle  of  Bull  Run. 
He  has  a  green  and  red  necktie  that  his  wife  gave  him 
at  Christmas.  He  has  a  soft  collar  that  the  store- 
keeper told  him  "they  were  all  wearing  nowadays," 
but  which  he  found  it  difficult  to  manipulate  into  a 
smooth  and  fine  appearance.  He  has  calloused  places 
on  his  hands.  His  left  toe  is  enlarged  where  the  ham- 
mer fell  on  it  last  summer.  He  has  a  touch  of  Riggs 
disease  and  his  front  teeth  are  not  so  firmly  fixed  as 
once  they  were.  He  notices  it  when  he  eats  green  corn. 
Gladys  says  to  Lucy,  "Isn't  popper  a  sight  ?  I  do  wish 
he  would  dress  better.  What  will  George  think  of 
him?"  But  Dad  has  done  his  best — his  very  best,  he 
cannot  possibly  look  any  better.  If  he  looks  as  well  as 
"George"  he  would  have  to  buy  a  nipped-in  coat  and  a 


92         JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

pair  of  tight  trousers  and  wear  a  belt,  and  Father's 
pants  will  not  stay  up  at  the  bidding  of  a  belt. 

Father  is  not  long  on  conversation  nowadays.  He 
used  to  be  when  he  could  talk  about  the  War  of  the 
Rebellion.  But  now  that  is  denied  to  him.  So  father 
goes  thru  the  evening  and  gets  up  in  the  morning,  boils 
an  egg  and  goes  away  to  work.  In  the  shop  or  the  fac- 
tory he  loses  himself  with  a  lot  of  other  "papas"  who 
are  keeping  the  high-priced  wolf  out  of  the  limousine 
and  figuring  on  how  to  buy  squirrel  coats  for  Gladyses. 
He  eats  dinner  from  a  pail  between  his  knees  or  blows 
himself  to  an  Irish  stew  at  the  restaurant.  Then  he 
takes  two  whiffs  of  his  pipe  for  dessert.  After  work, 
he  goes  home ;  sifts  the  ashes  and  in  winter,  tends  the 
furnace,  wheels  in  the  wood,  brings  in  the  clothes-reel, 
lugs  out  the  waste  and  makes  himself  as  useful  as  pos- 
sible while  Gladys  plays  the  piano.  He  gets  into  a  cor- 
ner of  the  rear  room  and  reads  his  paper  and  considers 
the  Treaty  of  Peace.  He  then  fixes  up  the  house  for 
the  night  and  if  there  is  a  noise  in  the  night  he  gets  a 
kick  in  the  back  with  orders  to  go  down  and  see  what 
has  happened.  If  a  baby  cries  he  has  to  get  up  and 
hunt  carpet-tacks,  and  if  anyone  goes  for  the  doctor, 
it  is  Dad.  When  there  is  discussion  of  the  future  of 
the  family  it  seems  to  be  up  to  Dad  to  provide  it,  and 
when  there  are  recriminations  for  the  past,  it  is  Dad 
who  is  the  Angora.  He  has  his  fun  when  he  dresses 
up  to  go  to  the  Lodge  and  when  there  is  a  meeting  of 
the  Chamber  of  Commerce  where  his  shrewd  observa- 
tions are  perhaps  respected;  but  at  home  he  sits  way 
back  and  reflects  that  in  parsing  the  word  "door-mat," 
the  gender  is  male. 

Yes —  I  am  pleading  merely  for  the  "unconsidered" 
father  now — (accent  on  the  adjective)  the  world  be- 
ing full  of  them,  going  along  as  patient,  weary  men 
bearing  burdens  happily  and  not  apparently  objects  of 
beauty  or  of  adornment — just  plain,  old-fashioned, 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES         93 

knobby,  rough,  out-of-style  codgers  who  work  away 
and  wait  for  nothing  much  except  the  winter  and  the 
summer,  the  bud  and  the  autumn  leaf,  the  dawn  and 
the  sunset,  enduring  to  the  day  that  they  climb  the  hill 
for  the  last  time  with  a  dim  notion  that  the  household 
will  some  day  be  rather  lonesome  without  the  old  man, 
after  all.  And  then,  suddenly,  he  kicks  in,  winds  up, 
does  his  last  stroke. 

Fold  his  hands  over  his  breast;  brush  the  sparse 
locks  from  his  brow;  take  a  look  into  the  faded  eyes; 
deck  him  in  his  Prince  Albert ;  tell  the  Lodge ;  send  for 
the  sister  whom  he  has  not  seen  for  twenty  years ;  sum- 
mon the  brothers — queer-looking  old  codgers,  stiff  and 
dry-eyed  and  full  of  memories;  notify  the  newspaper 
and  be  sorry  that  you  do  not  know  the  exact  date  of 
his  birth  or  the  exact  name  of  his  parents ;  he  has  done 
his  bit ;  he  has  done  his  best ;  he  has  lived  frugally  and 
faithfully  and  he  has  passed  on  and  will  get  a  hoarse 
reading  of  the  twenty-third  psalm,  by  a  minister  who 
is  in  a  hurry  to  be  off  to  another  funeral. 

Well — I  don't  know.  Maybe  this  is  a  bit  over- 
drawn ;  but  I  have  known  a  lot  of  such  unconsidered 
dads.  Plain  everyday,  hard-working,  faithful  father^. 
I  wonder  is  there  a  special  heaven  for  them  over  be- 
yond, where  they  can  get  a  little  of  what  they  have  not 
gotten  in  this  world — the  perfume  of  applause,  the  fra- 
grance of  adulation,  the  joys  of  flattery,  the  comfort 
of  being  a  member  of  the  heavenly  household.  Will 
these  unconsidered  dads  have  those  about  them  in  the 
next  world  who  will  flit  about  and  sing  sweet  songs  of 
love  to  them?  I  wonder! 


ON  "BOYS  WHO  WORK" 

OMING  over  to  work  the  other  morning  at 
about  7.15  A.M.,  I  noticed  a  nice-looking,  red- 
cheeked  boy  of  about  eighteen  working  with 
street  crews  in  Auburn.  He  was  handling 
an  eighteen  pound  pick  and  digging  away  the 
ice  on  the  shady  side  of  the  street  in  the 
cool  of  the  March  morning.  He  wore  a  High  School 
sweater  and  a  little  round  skating  cap.  Anyone  could 
see  that  he  was  a  regular  boy,  well-read  and  full  of 
determination. 

Said  I  to  mysef,  "Here  is  a  regular  old-fashioned 
boy  who  is  not  ashamed  of  honest  work." 

A  little  later  by  accident  I  found  out  who  the  boy 
is — fine  family,  well-to-do,  scholar  in  the  schools ;  who 
came  home  one  day  and  said:  "Dad,  Fve  got  a  job  for 
vacation.  Boss  has  taken  me  onto  the  streets.  I'm 
not  going  to  loaf  my  vacation  away  uselessly.  Every 
dollar  I  get  helps  me  on  toward  college." 

His  father  told  me  that  and  he,  too,  was  not 
ashamed  of  the  boy  or  his  job — ashamed !  God  forbid ! 
Inasmuch  as  the  father  is  a  regular  American  six- 
footer  who  has  plowed  his  own  way,  he  was  as  proud 
as  a  pea  hen  with  a  flock  of  pullets.  He  couldn't  help 
grinning  all  over  his  face  about  the  boy.  I,  too,  was 
proud  of  him.  A  boy  among  a  million,  I  do  believe! 
The  father  and  I  chuckled  a  while  over  the  boy;  but 
Dad  won't  say  much  to  the  boy  about  it.  Why  should 
he?  It's  up  to  the  boy  and  he  is  doing  nothing  that  is 
worth  making  a  fuss  over.  He  is  just  being  a  manly 
lad — unashamed  of  honest  toil ! 

What  am  I  talking  about?  Nothing  but  work. 
That's  all — that  obsolete  thing — for  many  boys  at 
least — work!  Mollycoddling  laws  and  fussbudgeting 
rules  about  work  for  boys  has  driven  home  the  notion 
that  toil  is  a  disgrace  for  the  boy  who  can  possibly 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES         95 

avoid  it  and  whose  "old  man"  is  a  meal  ticket  and  a 
good  easy  mark  for  flapdoodle  coats  split  up  the  back 
to  the  collar  and  a  bunch  of  "Lucky  Strikes"  per  diem. 
I  can  see  them,  every  day,  many  of  them  too  all-fired 
lazy  to  walk  across  the  river  from  Auburn  to  go  to 
the  afternoon  movies  and  needs  must  board  the  trolley 
for  a  seven-cent  ride  that  would  require  about  four 
minutes  of  the  walking  that  their  royal  highnesses 
cannot  endure.  And  so  they  board  a  street  car  for  a 
three-hundred  yard  ride  and  while  away  the  vacations 
in  the  movies.  If  they  condescend  to  ask  for  a  position 
and  nothing  less  than  80  cents  an  hour  with  double 
time  and  time  and  a  half  and  all  the  perquisites  of  the 
fifteen  minutes  lee-way  for  the  wash-up  and  the  late-in. 

Am  I  wrong?  I  want  to  be  shown  to  the  contrary ; 
for  such  is  the  experience  in  a  hundred  instances 
within  my  immediate  purview.  I  doubt  the  value  of 
modern  mollycoddling  and  allowance  system  of  bring- 
ing up  youth  of  both  sexes.  I  doubt  the  introduction 
of  childhood  to  the  easy  money  road  of  spendthrift 
ways.  A  few  days  ago  a  boy  confessed  in  a  Lewiston 
office  to  a  theft  of  money  which  he  said  was  brought 
about  by  going  "with  too  swift  a  gang."  Eats,  sodas, 
ice-creams,  car-rides,  movies — all  of  them  had  eaten 
into  his  allowance  of  $2.00  a  week  and  he  stole  a  lot  of 
money  to  make  good. 

Old-fashioned  dads  had  no  such  experiences. 
Nobody  ever  gave  me  five  dollars  in  the  whole  experi- 
ence of  my  boyhood  and  I  never  owned  a  five  dollar  bill 
until,  aged  sixteen,  I  earned  it  teaching  school  in  a 
country  district  at  $5  a  week — no,  $20  a  month — and 
board.  And  I  was  then  going  to  college  and  paying  my 
own  way  and  carrying  my  grub  in  my  pocket.  We  old- 
fashioned  boys  knew  about  money  because  we  had  to 
earn  it.  We  knew  what  enjoyment  there  was  in  accom- 
plishment; not  in  indulgence.  I  rather  be  a  pot-wal- 
loper in  a  restaurant,  a  dump-cleaner  in  a  dark  alley, 


96         JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

a  scavenger  in  a  slaughter-house  and  earn  money,  than 
grow  up  to  expect  some  one  to  hand  it  out  to  me  and 
never  know  what  earning  it  really  meant. 

That's  the  trouble  with  modern  education.  It  has 
been  easy  to  entice  boys  to  work  of  late  at  around  $90 
a  week  because  it  was  fashionable  and  supposed  to  be 
"winning  the  war" ;  but  when  you  see  a  real  boy  dig- 
ging in  the  ditch  and  making  frescoes  on  the  paving 
with  a  six-foot  hoe  and  yarding  with  the  adult  laborer, 
you  see  something  that  is  worth  while  and  that  speaks 
for  hope  in  the  rising  generation,  after  all.  Give  us 
fewer  tin-horn  dudes  and  more  lads  with  a  purpose! 


ON  "A  NEW  HAT5 


N  THE  FALL  of  1879  I  had  to  have  a  new  hat. 
When  a  boy  had  to  have  a  hat  in  1879,  bet 
your  life  he  HAD  to  have  it.  They  were  not 
throwing  money  around  in  those  days. 

I  had  to  get  my  hats  of  a  man  who  owed 
my  folks  money.  That  was  all  there  was  to 
it — no  other  way  for  me  to  get  a  new  lid.  This  partic- 
ular merchant  did  not  rank  as  the  leading  hatter.  He 
kept  good  cowhide  boots;  good  substantial  women's 
serge  boots  (I  mean  good  substantial  serge  shoes  for 
women — the  kind  that  went  with  elastics  in  the  side,  so 
becoming  when  the  wind  blew)  ;  perfectly  reliable  and 
fashionable  salt-pork;  just  as  good  corn-poppers  as 
anyone  else,  but  his  hats  were  distinctly  a  side-line. 

He  kept  them  behind  the  stove  in  about  five  boxes. 
He  SAID  they  were  all  of  the  latest  New  York  style. 
He  said  this  sadly,  as  tho  it  were  a  dangerous  admis- 
sion. He  told  me  not  to  mention  it,  or  it  might  hurt 
his  credit  to  have  it  known  that  he  went  it  wild  in  that 
sort  of  way.  He  used  to  take  me  out  back  where  they 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES         97 

sold  salt-fish  and  swear  me  not  to  reveal  that  he  was 
buying  his  hats  of  "leading  New  York  hatters." 

Said  he:  "And  I  want  you  to  know  what  I  have 
never  told  anyone  else.  I  wouldn't  have  anyone  else 
know  this  for  fifty  dollars.  But  you  will  understand 
this  because  you  are  going  to  college.  This  hat,  that  I 
am  going  to  show  you,  has  a  genu-ine  cigar-roll  brim. 
What  do  you  say  to  that?" 

I  will  never  forget  that  hat — and  I  say  "that 
hat"  because  it  was  the  only  hat  he  had  that  fitted  me, 
and  the  only  "genuine  cigar  roll  brim,"  I  believe,  that 
ever  was  made.  There  never  was  any  need  to  make 
another.  All  his  other  derbies  were  either  six  and  a 
half  or  eleven  and  three-eighths.  He  evidently  bought 
only  for  the  abnormal.  It  had  a  bellowing  crown,  taller 
than  the  crown  of  any  hat  that  has  ever  been  made 
elsewhere  in  the  world.  And  its  cigar-roll  brim  was 
faced  with  the  shiniest  of  black  satin.  The  dealer 
would  take  it  out  of  the  box ;  dust  it  with  a  silk  hand- 
kerchief;  take  it  out  doors  to  remove  imaginery  flecks 
of  lint  from  it  and  bring  it  in  and  place  it  on  my  head 
and  I  would  feel  as  tho  a  brick  block  had  suddenly 
dropped  on  me.  If  I  remember  aright,  I  weighed  102 
Ibs.  and  was  a  shrinking  lad,  of  small  stature,  and  that 
hat  stood  up  over  eleven  feet,  comparatively.  It  had  the 
shiniest  sweat-band  (singular  that  I  have  never  for- 
gotten that  feature)  and  a  lot  of  gilt  letters  in  it  declar- 
ing that  it  was  made  by  "The  Hatter  to  the  King."  I 
can't  remember  what  king ;  but  it  was  probably  King 
Canute. 

And  it  did  not  seem  to  fit — exactly ;  altho  the  clerk 
said  it  did  and  everyone  else  in  the  shop  said  so,  too. 
There  seemed  to  be  an  extra  vacant  room  front  and 
back  and  it  seemed  to  impinge  solely  over  my  ears. 
But  it  had  a  cigar-roll  brim.  It's  two-point  bearing 
made  it  alternately  tangle  up  in  my  coat  collar  and 
shut  out  the  sight  of  my  eyes.  When  I  walked  it 


98         JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

bobbed,  back  and  front,  like  the  walking  beam  of  an 
engine — but  it  had  a  cigar-roll  brim.  And  I  had  to 
take  it.  I  tried  it  on  over  four  hundred  times,  in  one 
week ;  but  Topsham  Fair  was  coming  and  a  girl  I  knew 
coming;  and  I  knew  that  Fate  fixed  it  for  me  to  wear 
that  hat  or  none.  I  did  wear  it  home — by  the  back 
streets,  and  when  mother  saw  me  she  stood  aghast  and 
said:  "Why!  why!  Sonny!"  and  then  seeing  my  gather- 
ing tears  and  knowing  my  cares  over  the  hat,  she 
desisted.  She  was  a  kind,  good  mother  and  she  knew ! 

If  I  should  live  to  rival  Methuselah  and  gradually 
lose  my  memory  year  by  year,  I  should  still  remember 
that  day  at  Topsham  Fair.  I  was  the  cynosure  of  all 
eyes.  Every  time  I  saw  anyone  looking  at  me,  the  hat 
swelled  up  about  a  foot,  and  along  about  noon,  it  was 
ninety  feet  tall.  That  shiny,  cigar-roll  brim  gleamed  in 
the  October  sunlight  like  the  diamonds  of  the  side-show 
barkers.  The  day  was  hot  and  the  hat  accumulated 
weight  with  every  hour.  The  heat  made  it  gradually 
conform  to  my  head  and  caused  it  to  sink  gradually 
and  bend  my  ears  out  at  right  angles  and  finally  to 
engulf  my  countenance.  I  noticed  my  girl  regarding 
my  disappearance  with  apprehension;  but  she  was  a 
game  sport  and  said  nothing — possibly  regarding  it 
either  as  correct  or  an  optical  illusion.  At  3  P.M.  the 
hat  was  around  my  chin  and  I  was  eclipsed.  Such  a 
day !  Most  of  the  time  I  wore  the  hat  in  my  hand  and 
looked  at  the  insides.  I  don't  want  to  make  this  story 
stronger  than  it  was — I  couldn't  anyway. 

That  night  late,  I  went  home  and  put  the  hat  away. 
The  episode  was  over.  I  had  worn  the  original  cigar- 
roll  brim.  After  this,  plain  goods  for  me!  No  more 
would  I  seek  the  rewards  of  extreme  style!  Simple 
ways  for  mine.  I  had  learned  my  lesson.  I  have  never 
forgotten  it.  The  next  day  I  took  the  hat  back  and 
passed  it  over  saying  it  "didn't  fit."  The  salesman 
looked  at  me  sadly.  Taking  the  shiny  brim  in  his  hand 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES         99 

he  put  it  back  in  the  box.  "Too  darn  bad,"  said  he. 
"Nobby  hat  on  yer !  Regular  cigar-roll  brim,  you  know ! 
Everybody  is  wearin'  'em!  Latest — !"  But  I  fled, 
and  the  next  week  bought  a  second-hand  hat  from  a 
class  mate  for  25  cents.  And  it  wasn't  bigger  than  a 
postage-stamp. 


ON  "THE  SPIRIT  OF  RETURNING" 

F  THERE  is  anything  profoundly  beautiful  in 
life  it  is  returning — the  spirit  of  it,  I  mean. 
It  is  the  story  not  only  of  the  prodigal  son, 
but  also  of  those  not  prodigals.  It  is  steeped 
in  restfulness,  the  balance  against  wayward- 
ness, the  end  of  wanderings — the  return. 
They  say  that  all  life  is  rhythmic, — a  swinging  out, 
a  return  to  the  old  base  and  just  a  bit  of  progress 
thereby ;  then  a  second  setting  forth ;  again  the  return 
and  again  a  step  ahead.  It  is  so  with  our  personal  lives. 
We  seem  to  go  away  that  we  may  return  and  know  the 
bliss  of  getting  back  again  to  the  fireside.  To  go  forth 
gladly  in  the  morning  of  a  journey;  to  experience  all 
of  the  adventure  of  the  way ;  to  feel  no  regret  for  the 
things  we  left  behind;  to  meet  new  faces  and  make 
new  friends — all  very  well,  but  when  the  weary  hours 
come  and  we  turn  our  faces  backward  to  the  old  home, 
when  the  glory  of  the  dying  day  shines  on  unfamiliar 
hills  and  we  miss  the  sounds  of  eventide  in  old  places, 
then,  with  what  eagerness  we  hasten  to  the  returning 
and,  standing  again  on  familiar  thresholds,  find  the 
peace  that  passeth  understanding  in  this  world  below. 
We  have  tried  novelty  and  found  it  good.  But  we  are 
"home  again"  and  that  is  better  than  all  else. 

The  sense  of  return  fills  all  life.    It  is  one  of  the 
most  persistent  of  our  emotions.    It  is  concerned  in 


100       JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

Nature,  It  is  identified  with  religion  and  a  symbol  of 
creation.  We  are  waiting  now  for  autumn.  It  is  sure 
to  return.  The  spirit  of  returning  is  even  now  upon  it. 
It  went  away  last  year  to  travel  in  many  lands  and 
stayed  not  longer  here  than  the  first  snows  of  winter. 
It  has  its  face  turned  this  way  already.  It  has  sent  its 
forerunners,  in  golden  gleams  along  the  way-side,  in  the 
falling  leaves  of  the  white  maple.  It  has  its  fingers  on 
the  pulse  of  summer.  It  is  staying  the  burden  of  the 
heat.  It  is  on  its  way.  If  it  did  not  return,  how  deso- 
late this  northern  land !  What  pain  and  anguish  to  us 
who  long  for  the  sweet  spirit  of  Autumn  in  the  fields 
and  pastures,  along  the  mountain  ponds,  in  the  drum  of 
the  partridge  and  the  flight  of  the  migratory  bird.  We 
love  August,  we  wait  September! 

What  would  we  do  if  the  spirit  of  returning  did  not 
reside  in  all  nature  ?  What  if  the  year  ever  came  when 
seasons  did  not  roll;  when  evening  sunsets  failed  to 
return  and  dawn  did  not  follow  after?  What  of  a 
world  in  which  there  was  never  any  repetition ;  always 
new  and  bizarre  effects,  no  regularity  and  no  conse- 
quence? It  would  be  like  going  way  from  home  and 
never  returning — no  peace  of  mind,  no  calm  of  spirit, 
no  welcome  at  the  threshold. 

We  come  into  the  world  as  children — we  return  to 
the  earth  as  children  and  we  are  promised  that  only 
as  children  shall  we  enter  into  heaven.  It  is  a  cycle! 
All  things — even  journeys — are  cycles.  We  see  the  tree 
put  forth  its  leaves  and  the  leaves  return  to  the  ground. 
We  see  the  tree  stand  proudly  aloft  and  then  fall,  when 
its  days  are  finished,  and  again  mingle  with  the  earth. 
It  is  so  with  man.  And  it  is  all  a  matter  of  completing 
cycles — of  returning  home ;  the  same  for  the  tree ;  same 
for  the  season ;  the  same  for  the  water  that  falls  from 
the  sky  in  rain  or  snow  again  to  be  caught  up  to  heaven 
again  to  fall.  It  is  called  death ;  but  it  is  doubtful  if  it 
is  more  than  a  returning  and  ever  a  returning  again 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON'THE'MES    .  '1»1 

and  again,  in  new  form  and  ne w. -metier,. but. with, tjhe,' 
impulse  of  the  soul  and  the  will  of,  ^d^tfer^e^inxiiL* 
We  talk  a  good  deal  in  disparagement  of  death ;  but  it 
is  not  to  be  disparaged.  It  is  as  beautiful  as  birth.  It 
is  not  unnatural — remember  that !  It  is  no  wrench  of 
systems  and  methods.  It  came  with  birth  and  it 
endures  with  it.  If  it  were  a  cataclysm  of  nature  it 
would  be  different ;  but  it  has  a  brother  in  sleep  and  it 
has  a  kin  in  all  returnings  and  in  all  new  seedlings  of 
plant,  tree  and  flower,  in  all  returns  of  season,  sunrise, 
sunset,  stars,  moon,  planets  and  in  the  infinite  circlings 
of  all  space. 

We  have  seen  this  week  the  passing  of  an  old  man — 
loved  and  revered,  in  this  community.  He  returns 
home — that  is  all.  So  do  you  and  so  I  in  good  season. 
Why  fret  your  days  here  ?  Why  worry  over  the  inev- 
itable turning  of  your  face  homeward — you  must  sleep 
somewhere  tonight  and  somewhere,  thru  the  ages. 
Why  seek  ever  to  go  on  and  on — you  do  not  do  it  of  a 
journey — the  hour  comes  when  the  old  fireside  tugs 
and  the  cares  of  home  seem  sweet !  Why  not  look  thus 
on  life?  It  is  in  perfect  analogy;  for  you  have  been 
long  away  from  home  and  it  is  time  to  turn  the  face 
that  way,  if  you  have  passed  the  meridian  of  life.  It  is 
a  dear  dim  goal — happy  if  you  may  see  its  welcome 
gates  afar.  You  must  return — that  is  all ! 


?  ON.  "STONE  WALLS" 

as  I  think  of  stone  walls,  I  think  of 
woodchucks  and  flavored  days  of  summer 
when  the  perfumes  of  the  hayfield  floated 
over  the  sunshot  world  and  the  bees  sang 
and  the  birds  almost  flew  in  our  faces  and 
the  dog  barked  neck-deep  from  the  mat  of 
trailing  vines  over  the  old  stone  wall. 

To  be  on  a  hill-top  abreast  a  stone  wall,  looking  off 
there  to  some  winding  stream,  off  here  to  the  smoke  of 
the  town,  off  beyond  to  the  dear  roofs  and  chimneys 
of  the  place  of  abode  and  yet  to  be  digging  out  a  wood- 
chuck  under  a  stone  fence  make  for  idylls  that  no  king 
ever  bettered.  To  be  boy  or  girl  and  woodchuck  and 
stone  wall  and  summer!  What  more  need  one  dream 
about,  even  if  he  be  as  great  as  a  king  or  even  as  poten- 
tial as  a  walking  delegate.  Anima  pellegrina!  Pil- 
grim souls  that  will  not  stay  by  the  fireside ;  that  will 
not  be  content  to  live  in  wage-scales  and  creature  com- 
fort, come  out  and  sit  by  the  old  stone  wall  that  winds 
away  and  away  over  the  hills  and  down  in  the  valleys 
and  over  the  brook  and  into  the  stump  fence  and  so  on 
across  the  world.  And  wander  with  it  where  you  will. 
I  recall  this  about  the  old  stone  wall  of  the  New 
Englander  that  lives  in  even  this  latter  day  abund- 
antly and  makes  the  picturesqueness  of  many  a  land- 
scape, that  it  was  made  by  honest  work,  not  by  Wednes- 
day and  Saturdays  off  and  forty-one  hours  a  week  and 
a  grasshopper  socialism,  that  intends  to  make  leisure 
the  god  and  work  the  curse  of  the  ages.  It  was  built — 
was  this  winding  wall  of  ours — by  men  and  women 
who  saw  sweetness  in  accomplishment  and  recognized 
in  hey-day,  happy,  Pallegro  days  nothing  more  than 
opportunity  for  better  work  under  more  favorable  cir- 
cumstances, for  the  day  would  come  when  the  snow 
would  blow  over  these  hills  and  the  stones  of  the  field 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES       103 

would  be  buried  deep,  and  the  drifts  wou W,  pile  where • 
now  the  briars  run  and  the  wild  yitie  blossoms. •.  -Soil 
sit  here  on  the  old  stone  wall  and  see  the  armies  of  the 
toilers  of  our  fathers  and  our  fathers'  fathers  house- 
holds in  the  long  ago,  singing,  swinging  on  this  man's 
job — and  all  for  us.  What  are  we  doing  for  our  coming 
sons  and  daughters  that  is  more  abiding  than  cleared 
land  and  stone-walls  ?  I  sit  here  and  see  an  elder  race 
that  did  not  estimate  life  as  an  easy  job.  I  sit  here 
and  see  as  did  Walt  Whitman,  "Victory,  union,  faith, 
identity,  time,  the  indissoluble  compacts,  riches,  mys- 
tery, eternal  progress,  the  cosmos  and  the  modern 
reports."  Do  you  understand  that!  And  do  you  see 
how  it  might  all  have  come  from  building  an  old  stone 
wall.  Oh,  blind  ones  who  esteem  the  easy  job.  Vic- 
tory was  learned  in  accomplishment  and  then  all  the 
rest  came  after.  No  artist,  no  singer,  no  writer,  no 
statesman,  no  business  manager,  no  workman,  no 
pioneer,  no  inventor  ever  did  anything  honestly  and 
faithfully  and  reared  any  abiding  thing  that  he  did  not 
something  for  these  eleven  attributes  of  life.  No  man 
ever  shirked  the  job;  cheated  the  time-book,  proved 
traitor  to  the  contract,  who  did  not  thereby  deny  his 
Maker  and  do  defiance  to  that  law  which  declares  that 
life  is  a  succession  of  men — each  doing  his  duty. 

The  woodchuck  still  burrows  under  the  old  stone 
wall.  Man  builds  them  no  more ;  for  lands  are  cleared 
and  the  stone  is  rejected  of  the  builder.  He  lives — 
does  the  woodchuck,  as  the  briar  runs,  as  the  bird 
carols,  as  the  artist  sings,  as  the  writer  writes — to  ful- 
fil some  divine  law.  The  wall  runs  away  and  I  turn 
from  discursive  things  to  contemplate  their  sheer 
beauty.  I  love  them  especially  along  the  barren  pas- 
tures near  the  sea.  I  know  of  nothing  more  absolutely 
simple  in  its  pure  artistry  than  a  stone  wall  rising  over 
a  seaside  pasture  knoll  within  close  proximity  to  waves. 
To  look  at  them  undulating  in  the  hollows  and  then 


104       JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

lifting  over  the  tops  of  hills  and  sweeping  on  to  dip 
their  noses  in  the  ?>ea,  is  worth  while.  There  are  some 
few  things  like  this,  rather  ugly  on  close  inspection  but 
lovely  in  the  entirety  and  fitness  that  move  folk  to 
dream  and  perhaps  to  have  that  warm  and  "comfy" 
feeling  in  the  "little  insides"  that  seeing  beautiful 
things  out-of-doors  always  gives  one. 

So — without  much  continuity,  I  introduce  you  to 
the  stone  wall  as  to  an  inheritance  of  our  fathers.  It 
goes  with  fan-shaped  windows  of  colonial  homes ;  with 
buds,  briars,  woodchucks,  brooks,  books  and  sermons, 
but  not  with  cabaret  or  limousine  or  pool-rooms  or 
pleasure  as  sole  end  of  life. 


ON  "MAKING  THE  BEST  OF  THINGS" 

MAN  named  William  McQuigg  fell  down  the 
shaft  of  a  mine  and  lay  there  three  days. 
He  was  taken  up  alive  but  paralyzed  from  the 
waist  down.  He  was  taken  to  a  hospital  for 
incurables  in  Chicago  and  was  there  two 
years.  He  could  use  his  head,  hands  and 
arms — especially  his  head. 

In  some  way,  he  realized  $300  out  of  his  past  be- 
longings, as  a  miner,  and  when  this  had  come  to  hand, 
he  informed  the  hospital  officials  that  he  was  about  to 
leave  them.  No  man  with  his  brains  was  incurable,  in 
the  full  sense  of  the  term.  He  accordingly  devised  a 
small  bed  with  wheels  on  which  he  could  lie  and  which 
he  could  propel  with  his  arms  and  hands.  He  was 
taken  from  the  hospital  and  set  upon  the  streets  to  be- 
gin again  the  life  of  an  active  man. 

His  first  business  move  was  to  lease  a  store  and 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES       105 

start  a  small  printing  and  stationery  business.  He  did 
well.  He' attracted  attention  by  his  cheerfulness  and 
optimism.  They  were  his  best  stock-in-trade  as  they 
are  any  man's  best  business  assets.  He  became  fore- 
handed. He  owned  his  automobile  which  was  made 
especially  for  his  needs,  with  a  bed  in  it.  In  this  he 
went  everywhere,  doing  business  and  enjoying  all  that 
nature  and  the  sight  of  man  can  combine  to  offer. 

We  have  an  example  of  the  highest  possible  inspira- 
tion right  here  in  Lewiston,  of  a  young  man  who,  in  the 
fullness  of  his  strength  as  a  boy,  was  accidentally  shot, 
damaging  the  spinal  cord.  He  is  doing  business, 
cheerfully,  with  never  a  complaint,  driving  his  own  au- 
tomobile under  physical  conditions  that  in  a  less  de- 
termined character  might  keep  him  bed-ridden,  away 
from  all  that  a  man  holds  dear.  One  never  sees  him 
but  with  a  prayer  for  his  renewing  strength  and  a 
blessing  on  him  for  his  example. 

It's  a  big  thing  to  make  the  best  of  things.  Half  a 
man  is  better  than  no  man  at  all.  A  man's 
brain  is  ninety  per  cent,  of  his  anatomy.  He  can  get 
along  without  legs  and  arms  and  other  minor  organs  if 
he  has  his  dynamic  brain  going.  It  is  hard  to  be  crip- 
pled— but  there  are  worse  things.  And  the  cheerful 
man,  who  shows  to  the  world  the  aspect  of  a  fellow- 
worker  under  adverse  circumstances,  is  positively  an 
inspiration.  He  shames  the  idler.  It  puts  the  rich 
man's  dissipated  and  non-productive  life  into  the  dis- 
card of  vain  and  wicked  things  when  one  contemplates 
this  patient  soldier  of  industry,  toiling  away,  like  Will- 
iam McQuigg,  happy  to  do  his  share. 

We  are  soon  going  to  see  many  a  man,  badly  dam- 
aged from  the  war.  They  will  be  coming  home  blind- 
ed, without  feet  and  hands,  paralyzed  and  helpless.  But 
not  one  of  them  as  true  soldiers  will  fail  to  make  the 
best  of  it — to  do  something  to  keep  a  place  in  the  ranks 
of  workers. 


106       JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

But  how  about  the  rest  of  us  ?  Are  our  belly-aches 
and  our  indispositions  and  our  nervous  prosperities, 
and  our  follies  and  our  foibles  to  continue  to  make  ex- 
cuses for  laziness  ?  s 

Wake  up!  There's  a  new  day  abroad,  in  which 
every  man  shall  work  and  work  all  over.  And  if  he  is 
short  an  arm  or  a  leg  or  toe,  what  is  left  will  wiggle  on 
and  there  will  be  no  such  name  as  "crippled"  or  incur- 
able. 

Wake!  for  the  day  calleth! 


ON  "THE  VOICE  OF  THE  FROG" 

AM  straining  my  ear  to  hear  the  first  croak  of 
the  frog.  Somehow,  it  rests  me  from  the 
contemplation  of  turmoil,  to  think  of  some- 
thing sempiternal,  like  spring  and  signs  of 
spring.  The  more  you  think  of  God  and  His 
works  and  the  less  you  worry  over  German 
hellishness  the  better,  I  think.  Think  more,  therefore, 
of  spring,  frogs  and  tortoises. 

I  don't  know  much  of  Nature  except  in  the  senti- 
mental way.  I  did  not  know — until  I  looked  it  up — 
that  the  wood-tortoise  is  the  Emys  insculpta.  I  have 
heard  him  a  little  farther  south  in  New  England,  after 
the  mud  of  the  freshets  has  dried  on  the  fallen  leaf  in 
the  swamp,  as  he  moves,  rustling  in  the  leaves  or 
tumbling  over  the  bank.  I  don't  know  which  birds 
come  first,  but  some  day  I  see  a  bird  that  I  recognize 
as  a  fat  rascal  of  a  robin  and  I  know  him  because  my 
mother  used  to  say  "0,  see  the  robin  redbreast,"  and  I 
said  that  same  to  my  children.  All  the  children  that 
came  to  my  house  were  as  mine.  I  don't  know  which 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES       107 

trees  come  into  leaf  first.  I  only  know  that  there  is  a 
breath  of  something  new  and  vital  in  the  air,  like  a 
presage  of  God  on  earth  and  then  there  is  glory  in  the 
filtered  light  thru  foliage.  All  leaves  are  alike  to  me. 

But  the  frog  is  different.  Every  time  I  hear  him 
first,  I  feel  youth  stir  my  blood  in  remembrance  and 
visions  of  old  places  and  old  faces  return  to  me.  I  see 
the  old  house  and  the  old  hill  and  the  old  frog-pond  and 
the  old  bonfires  blazing  on  the  hill  and  the  old  row  of 
bowls  where  we  played  duck  and  drake.  I  was  pleased 
to  know  this  day  that  someone  else  liked  the  frog  in 
something  the  same  way. 

That  other  one  was  Thoreau.  Frogs  held  his  con- 
trite admiration.  "The  same  starry  geometry  looks 
down  on  their  active  and  their  torpid  state,"  says  he. 
"The  little  peeping  hyla  winds  his  shrill  mellow  min- 
iature flageolet  in  the  warm,  overflowed  pools  and  sug- 
gests to  him  this  stupendous  image.  'It  was  like  the 
light,  reflected  from  the  mountain  ridges  within  the 
shaded  portions  of  the  moon,  forerunner  and  herald  of 
the  spring.'  "  Thoreau  made  a  regular  business,  study- 
ing the  frogs — waded  for  them  with  freezing  calves,  in 
the  early  freshet,  caught  them  and  carried  them  home 
to  hear  their  sage  songs.  "I  paddle  up  the  river  to  see 
the  moonlight  and  hear  the  bull-frog,"  says  he.  About 
May  22,  he  hears  the  willowy  music  of  the  frog,  and 
notices  the  pads  on  the  river  with  often  a  scalloped 
edge  like  those  tin  platters  on  which  the  country  peo- 
ple sometimes  bake  turnovers.  He  says  of  the  wood- 
frog,  Rana  sylvatica,  "It  had  four  or  five  dusky  bars 
which  matched  exactly  when  the  legs  were  folded, 
showing  that  the  painter  applied  his  brush  to  the  ani- 
mal when  it  was  in  that  position."  The  leopard-frog, 
the  marsh-frog,  the  bull-frog  and  best  of  all  earthly 
singers,  the  toad  he  never  could  do  enough  for.  It 
was,  he  says,  a  great  discovery,  when  first  he  found  that 
the  ineffable  trilling  concerto  of  early  summer  after 


108       JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

sunset  was  arranged  by  the  toads — when  the  earth 
seemed  fairly  to  stream  with  the  sound.  He  thought 
that  the  yellow,  swelling  throat  of  the  bull-frog  came 
with  the  water-lilies. 

Is  it  not  some  satisfaction  to  think  that  toads  and 
frogs  will  go  on  and  on  and  on,  singing — after  the 
Hohenzollerns  and  such  small  fry  are  dead  and  gone? 
Is  it  not  some  comfort  that  flowers  may  spring  up 
a^ain  in  No  Man's  Land?  Is  it  not  pleasant  to  think 
that  tho  Rheims  is  gone — the  elm  tree  can  fling  aloft  a 
beauty  never  matched  by  cathedral  spire  ? 

Be  of  courage !  Spring  will  yet  come  into  the  heart 
of  humankind ! 


ON  "THE  FAIR  AVERAGE  OF  WICKEDNESS" 

WAS  OUT  on  the  Union  Pacific,  one  time,  some- 
where west  of  Omaha,"  said  Charles  S.  Cum- 
mings  of  Auburn,  "with  no  berth  in  the  sleep- 
er. I  happened  by  chance  to  meet  a  miner, 
whom  I  had  seen  a  few  days  before,  and  he 
gave  me  half  of  his.  The  car  was  crowded; 
baggage  in  the  aisles;  children  crying;  women  tired 
and  fussy.  My  friend  couldn't  sleep,  so  he  got  up  in 
the  night  and  went  to  the  smoking  room  for  a  whiff. 
He  fell  over  baggage  and  had  a  hard  trip. 

"In  the  morning  he  said  to  me,  'What  is  your  busi- 
ness?' " 

"  'I  am  a  clergyman/  said  I. 

"  'My  word/  said  he,  'You  must  be  shocked.  I 
swore  terribly,  didn't  I?'  " 

"  'Yes/  said  I,  'You  did  swear  a  lot  when  you  fell 
down,  but  I  prayed  a  lot  while  you  swore,  and  thus  kept 
up  a  fair  average  for  both  of  us/  ' 

I  think  that  a  good  many  people  forget  that  the 
world  runs  by  averages.  It  is  hard  to  get  one  hundred 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES       109 

per  cent  efficiency  either  in  praying  or  swearing.  It 
is  fair  to  suppose  that  swearing  has  its  uses,  by  way 
of  emphasis  and  relief  of  nervous  strain.  Bad  habit? 
Sure  thing!  Unnecessary?  Sure  thing!  Ought  to  be 
stopped?  Sure  thing!  Let's  condemn  humanity  for 
swearing,  therefore;  let's — let's  thunder  against  it  in 
the  press;  let's  fine  and  imprison  and  classify  as 
wicked  and  altogether  base,  such  persons  as  are  pro- 
fane— what  do  you  say  to  that?  I  say,  "No.  Let's 
pray  a  little  ourselves  and  raise  the  average."  Let's 
look  at  the  world  as  one  of  fair  average  of  wickedness 
and  errors  and  let's  try  to  raise  that  average  by  doing 
right  ourselves  and  not  paying  too  much  attention  to 
our  neighbor's  misdoing.  If  we  all  do  that,  we  will 
have  no  bad  neighbors.  They  will  all  be  as  perfect  as 
we  are.  And  won't  that  be  lovely ! 

Now  I  don't  want  any  good  Christian  person  to 
write  me — many  people  have  been  writing  me — and 
say  that  this  signifies  a  plea  for  profanity.  I  don't 
mean  anything  like  that.  The  bad  is  bad ;  but  we  don't 
want  to  be  looking  at  the  bad  too  much.  We  should 
remember  that  dirt  collects  even  in  our  own  houses. 
Let's  keep  them  clean  and  forget  it.  It  is  a  penalty  of 
living  in  an  imperfect  world.  We  will  do  better  to  be- 
lieve in  the  cleanly  part  of  humanity  and  look  for  it. 
Many  people  spend  all  their  lives  bemoaning  the  evil 
that  other  people  do.  Ninety-nine  per  cent  of  it  is  a 
part  of  some  great  evolution  of  God.  A  few  years  ago 
we  growled  at  the  evil  men  were  doing  in  slavery.  We 
had  a  great  war  to  free  our  land  from  it.  The  results 
are  felt  in  this  war.  The  evil  stood  big  in  our  eyes. 
It  beclouded  man's  vision.  It  blinded  him  to  the  love 
of  home,  the  traditions  of  friendliness,  the  desires  that 
were  in  the  Southern  heart.  We  went  to  work  and 
fought  and  prayed  and  we  raised  the  average.  Those 
people  were  not  to  be  classified  as  wicked  altogether. 
God  was  using  them  to  bring  about  a  great  ethical  and 


110       JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

religious  lesson  to  the  world.  If  we  could  only  take 
folks  on  the  average  and  not  condemn  them  wholly 
when  they  should  be  condemned  only  in  part,  we  would 
get  along  faster. 

So  I  say  that  what  we  need  in  the  discussion  of 
current  topics  in  which  apparent  wrong  meets  our  eye 
is  a  greater  measure  of  that  message  of  the  Master, 
"Judge  not;  that  ye  be  not  judged"  and  in  the  spirit  of 
David's  appeal  to  judge  the  world  "in  righteousness." 
In  other  words  we  must  let  facts  talk  instead  of  pas- 
sions and  prejudices  and  unfounded  inferences  as  to 
the  altogether  wickedness  of  those  whom  we  criticise. 
For,  I  do  not  believe  that  there  is  any  person  in  whom 
there  is  not  good.  I  do  believe  that  there  is  a  fair 
average  of  good  in  a  great  average  of  the  world. 
What  we  have  to  do  is  to  forget  the  classification — at- 
tack the  wrong,  leave  out  the  personality  and  by  pray- 
er and  fight  correct  the  error  and  raise  the  average  of 
the  world  to  another  notch. 


ON  "IT  COSTS  BUT  TWO  CENTS" 

E  FIND  a  good  many  people  who  think  that  a 
newspaper  costs  two  cents. 

So,  too,  there's  a  good  many  people  who 
think  that  the  pew-rent  is  ten  dollars  a  year. 

One  is  about  as  near  right  as  the  other  and 
both  are  wrong. 


The  pew-rent  costs  martyrdom,  a  Christ  on  the 
cross,  crusades,  holy  wars,  inquisition,  trains  of  mis- 
sionaries, sacrifices  in  flame  and  blood,  wearying  vigils 
by  the  midnight  lamp,  holy  women  in  the  church,  the 
blood  of  Saints,  the  Pilgrim  Fathers,  the  treasure  of 
ages. 

The  newspaper — I  will  be  pardoned  for  the  compari- 
son with  the  church — cost  four  hundred  years  of  battle 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES      111 

for  human  liberty,  men  imprisoned  for  the  sake  of 
truth,  early  martyrs  in  the  stocks,  the  ears  of  Prynne, 
the  pillory  for  Defoe,  the  tail  of  the  cart  to  Tyburn  for 
Roger  L'Estrange,  jail  and  the  hangman's  bonfire  for 
early  American  colonial  editors,  the  trials  of  John 
Wilkes  and  Junius,  the  throes  of  Milton's  "Aeropa- 
gitica,"  the  perils  of  the  Massachusetts  Spy  and  the 
ride  of  Paul  Revere. 

The  newspaper — a  two-cent  proposition! 

It  is  one  of  the  largest  industries  in  the  United 
States.  The  printing  business  is  capitalized  at  $720,- 
231,654  in  the  U.  S.  It  employs  over  700,000  people. 
There  are  25,000  newspapers.  Their  income  is  over 
$810,000,000  a  year.  They  circulate  over  31,000,000 
copies  every  day  of  the  daily  newspaper.  Of  all  papers 
and  periodicals  they  circulate  a  total  of  250,594,907 
copies  per  issue.  The  total  number  of  daily  papers 
issued  in  a  year  is  more  than  9,000,000,000 — over  nine 
thousand  million.  A  twelve  page  paper  will  take  over 
nine  feet  of  paper  a  yard  wide.  The  web  of  paper 
needed  to  print  all  of  the  daily  papers  of  America  for 
a  year  would  be  81,000  million  feet  long.  The  web  of 
paper  from  the  daily  press  of  America  will  reach  from 
earth  to  sun  in  a  few  years. 

One  New  York  newspaper  has  a  yearly  expense  ac- 
count of  about  $5,000,000.  Some  manufacturing  in- 
dustry, is  it  not?  It  costs  one  American  newspaper 
close  to  two  millions  a  year  for  newsprint  paper  and 
ink.  Some  little  two-cent  paper,  eh!  Only  it  is  sold 
for  a  cent  a  copy. 

What  else — some  brains,  some  responsibility,  some 
risk,  some  patience,  some  genius,  some  courage,  some 
power,  some  faith,  some  hope,  some  foresight,  some 
statesmanship,  some  philosophy,  some  study,  some 
work. 

A  newspaper  costs  also  heart  and  soul,  gray  hairs 
and  early  graves.  It  calls  on  conscience,  and  demands 


112       JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

the  sacrifice  of  comfort  and  vacations.  It  is  manufac- 
turing, preachment,  prophecy,  business  risk  and  many 
other  hazards,  combined. 

It  is  eternal  watchfulness — blazing  competition  in 
the  search  of  news,  heroes  in  every  field,  all  habited 
places  of  earth,  under  the  earth,  under  the  sea,  in  the 
skies,  over  battle  fields,  over  the  top,  in  the  trenches,  in 
the  cabinets,  in  the  courts,  in  commerce  and  in  finance 
— all  specialists — all  for  two  cents  a  day. 

NOW!  Do  you  think  that  it  costs  but  two  cents. 
True,  that's  what  it  sells  for.  But  it  costs !  As  well 
ask  what  freedom  costs ! 


ON  "A  NIGHT  IN  THE  OPEN" 

HE  night  began  to  shut  down  and  we  were  far 
from  camp.  We  might  have  made  it,  but  the 
October  sunset  enticed  us  and  the  swift  flying 
twilight  bade  us  stay.  There  would  be  worry 
in  camp,  but  there  would  be  something 
new  out  here,  in  the  open,  and  Adventure 
beckoned  us  with  winsome  smile. 

We  built  a  fire  in  the  open  tote-road  by  the  side  of  a 
low  embankment  of  tall  grasses.  The  tote-road  is  a 
sort  of  Fifth  Avenue  in  the  deep  woods.  It  was  built 
for  carrying  supplies  to  logging  camps.  It  had  been 
long  since  abandoned  and  its  grassy  way  is  now  un- 
touched by  the  slow,  grinding  runner  of  the  heavy 
sleds.  The  trees  stand  all  around  it,  deep,  mysterious. 
If  you  will  step  out  into  the  middle  of  the  road  and  look 
upward  you  may  see  the  stars.  But  if  you  look  right 
or  left  or  straight  ahead  or  backward  there  are  the  tall 
trees  watching  you  and  swaying  to  and  fro  as  tho  mov- 
ing to  some  song  of  the  forests. 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES       113 

We  had  supper — not  much — but  a  few  remnants  of 
a  luncheon  and  a  partridge  that  we  plucked  and  roasted 
on  a  spit  before  the  open  fire.  Then  we  lit  our  pipes 
and  lay  on  the  boughs  that  we  had  cut  and  piled  up 
alongside  the  embankment  of  the  road.  And  then  we 
were  very  comfortable,  on  the  soft  bed,  feet  to  the  fire, 
Injun  fashion.  The  sparks  from  the  fire  rose  softly  up 
into  the  cool,  fresh  air.  It  was  too  pleasant  for  words. 
Flames  from  an  open  fire  in  the  woods  have  a  curious 
way  with  them.  They  seem  to  be  very  friendly  and 
social.  They  comfort  one  as  never  can  they  do  else- 
where— not  even  in  the  broad  fireplace.  There,  they 
are  circumscribed.  Here,  they  seem  to  reach  out 
and,  now  and  then,  open  up  vistas  in  the  woods  and 
then  shut  them  quickly  as  tho  permitting  you  to  peep 
into  woodland  arcana.  I  remember  looking  out  into 
them  as  tho  into  cathedrals — the  columnar  vastness  of 
St.  Peter's  at  Rome  or  that  wonderful  nave  at  Milan. 

You  will  easily  fall  asleep  with  your  feet  to  the  open 
fire  of  a  night,  in  the  open.  And  then,  something  will 
awaken  you,  arid  you  will  declare  that  it  is  the  stillness. 
In  reality  it  is  the  forest  calling  you  to  arouse  and  hear 
its  story.  It  sighs  and  sings.  It  rubs  branches  to- 
gether as  the  man  plays  the  bull-fiddle.  It  has  high 
trebles  in  the  upper  levels.  The  brooks  play  like  harps, 
away  off.  There  is  a  low  rustling  of  indefinable  things. 
It  might  be  tiny  life,  surging  to  and  fro,  underfoot.  It 
might  be  some  vast  spirit  of  the  forest,  moving  among 
the  trees.  Often  you  are  not  sure  that  it  is  a  sound. 
It  may  be  only  the  throbbing  of  your  life-blood  in  the 
intense  stillness. 

I  remember  that  along  about  two  o'clock  in  the 
morning  when  it  was  very  dark,  I  arose  and  put  more 
wood  on  the  fire.  Then  I  stepped  out  into  the  road 
and  looked  up  into  the  sky.  Far  up,  and  up,  swung  the 
spruce  tops.  All  around  hummed  the  wind  in  the  sur- 
face of  the  forest-deeps,  as  the  winds  swing  over  the 


114       JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

ocean  tops  to  them  on  the  floor  of  the  sea.  Every- 
thing was  full  of  immensity,  primordial.  And  yet,  in 
that  hour,  I  had  an  actual  experience.  Instead  of  feel- 
ing myself  but  an  atom,  but  a  tiny  thing  amid  all  this, 
I  suddenly  and  forever  came  to  feel  myself  one  with 
pine  and  spruce,  with  the  leaf  and  branch,  with  the 
listening  things  in  the  woods,  with  the  spirits  and  fays, 
that  might  be  all  about  me, — one,  even,  with  Arcturus 
and  Orion  and  all  the  gleaming  suns  that  shone  on 
high.  I  never  had  a  greater  accession  of  Faith. 

If  you  are  inclined  to  doubt  God,  go  into  the  woods ; 
camp  of  a  night  by  the  open  camp-fire  and  observe  His 
ways.  For  the  camp-fire's  gleam  reaches  to  the  stars 
and  often  brings  their  shining  down  into  the  human 
heart.  God  may  lay  his  hands  on  you  some  night 
when  you  are  out  in  the  open.  He  has,  on  a  great 
many  people,  by  sea  and  by  land. 

The  next  day  we  went  rather  sheepishly  to  camp. 
"Why  didn't  you  come  home  ?"  asked  they. 

"Well,  you  see,"  said  my  companion,  and  then 
paused. 

"How  in  the  name  of  the  Lord  could  we?"  said  I. 
And  they  never  knew  what  I  meant. 


ON  "TOM  AND  HIS  HATCHET" 

ID  YOU  ever  read  Rabelais'  story  of  Tom  Well- 
hung,  the  honest  country  fellow  of  GravoC, 
who  lost  his  hatchet  and  set  up  such  a  bellow- 
ing to  Jupiter  that  he  disturbed  the  gods  at 
their  council  until  Jupiter  sent  Mercury  down 
to  find  out  what  was  the  trouble? 
When  the  light-heeled  deity  came  back  and  reported 
to  the  Gods,  Jupiter  said  to  Mercury,  "Run  down  and 
give  the  poor  fellow  three  hatchets — one  his  own,  one 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES   115 

of  gold  and  one  of  silver.  If  he  take  his  own,  give  him 
the  other  two ;  if  he  take  the  silver  or  the  gold,  chop  off 
his  head  with  his  own  and  henceforth  serve  me  all 
losers  of  hatchets  the  same." 

So  Mercury  does  as  bid  and  in  a  trice  he  alights 
nimbly  on  earth  and  throwing  down  the  three  hatchets, 
says :  "Thou  has  bawled  long  enough  to  be  a'  dry ;  thy 
prayers  are  granted  by  Jupiter;  see  which  of  these  is 
thy  hatchet  and  take  it  away  with  thee." 

Tom  lifts  up  the  golden  hatchet;  peeps  on  it  and 
finds  it  heavy;  then  staring  at  Mercury,  says,  "Cods- 
zouks,  this  is  none  o'  mine ;  I  won't  ha'  't."  The  same 
he  does  with  the  silver.  At  last  he  takes  up  his  own 
hatchet,  examines  it  at  the  end  of  the  helve  and  finds 
his  own  mark  there  and  ravished  with  joy,  he  cries, 
"By  the  mass,  this  is  my  hatchet." 

"Honest  fellow,"  says  Mercury,  "I  leave  it  with 
thee ;  take  it ;  and  because  thou  hast  wished  moderately 
and  chosen  justly,  Jupiter  gives  you  these  two  others. 
Thou  hast  now  the  means  to  be  rich.  Be  also  honest." 

Tom  started  off  and  went  his  way.  Finally  he 
came  to  the  city  of  Chinon  where  he  sold  his  silver  and 
gold  hatchets  and  bought  lands  and  barns  and  a  great 
many  other  things  that  Master  Francois  gives  in  detail 
as  is  his  wont.  And  he  was  very  rich. 

His  brother  bumpkins  became  amazed  at  Tom's  for- 
tune and  made  it  their  business  to  find  out  how  he  got 
it,  and  learning  that  it  was  by  losing  a  hatchet,  they 
sold  everything  and  bought  hatchets  and  lost  them  and 
their  laments  stirred  again  the  councils  of  heaven  and 
brought  Jupiter  to  account.  The  bumpkins  brayed 
and  bellowed  and  prayed.  "Ho,  ho  Jupiter,  my  hatchet, 
my  hatchet!"  The  air  rang  with  the  cries  of  these 
rascally  losers  of  hatchets. 

Mercury  was  nimble  in  bringing  them  hatchets. 
To  each  the  offering  was  the  same — a  silver,  a  gold, 
and  the  hatchet  that  he  had  lost.  Each  loser  was  for 


116       JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

the  gold,  giving  thanks  in  abundance  to  Jupiter,  but  in 
the  nick  of  time  as  he  bowed  and  stooped  to  take  it 
from  the  ground!  Whip!  in  a  trice,  Mercury  cut  off 
his  head  as  commanded.  And  of  heads  there  was  just 
the  same  number  as  there  was  of  lost  hatchets. 

You  see  how  it  was  with  these  rascals.  You  see 
how  it  is  now  with  most  of  those  who  wish  something 
easy.  They  never  wish  in  moderation — never  satisfied 
with  what  good  fortune  brings  them,  let  it  be  much  or 
little. 

Will  you  be  like  him  of  whom  Rabelais  tells — who 
wished  that  Our  Lady's  church  were  brim  full  of  steel 
needles  to  the  spire  and  that  he  could  have  as  many 
ducats  as  might  be  crammed  into  as  many  bags  as 
might  be  sewed  with  these  needles,  until  they  wore  out 
both  at  point  and  eye. 

Wish,  therefore,  for  mediocrity  and  it  shall  be  given 
to  you  and  over  and  above  yet ;  that  is  to  say,  provided 
you  bestir  yourselves  manfully  and  do  your  very  best 
in  the  meantime. 


ON  "TREES  AND  FORESTS" 

T  IS  USUALLY  the  case  that  we  do  not  prize 
what  we  have,  as  fully  as  we  should.  In  the 
days  of  the  pioneers  there  was  an  inborn 
hatred  of  the  forests.  They  were  dark, 
dreadful  and  inhabited  by  wild  beasts.  They 
say  that,  at  Andover  Seminary  seventy-five 
years  ago,  if  a  young  student  wanted  to  ingratiate  him- 
self with  the  faculty  he  went  out  before  breakfast  and 
cut  down  one  or  two  of  the  beautiful  trees  in  their 
great  avenue  before  anyone  was  awake.  The  govern- 
ment took  a  certain  care  of  the  forests  for  ship-build- 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES       117 

ing  and  after  that,  dropped  the  subject  for  years. 
Maine  got  rid  of  her  forests  largely  because  people 
hated  them.  They  wanted  farms,  fields,  settlers,  rail- 
roads. 

Like  many  other  good  things,  regard  for  the  tree 
has  come  into  its  own  again.  It  is  time  for  the  govern- 
ment of  states  again  to  take  the  tree  in  charge.  It  is 
high  time  that  trees  were  a  public  ward  and  no  man 
could  cut  them  even  on  his  own  land,  without  public 
consent.  Without  trees  we  should  have  barrenness  all 
over  the  land.  Why  let  the  portable  saw  mill  starve  a 
state? 

So  it  is  that  in  every  civilized  community,  the  own- 
ership of  forests  eventually  comes  to  the  government. 
It  is  estimated  that  even  the  most  acute  business  man 
does  not  look  forward  over  six  years.  The  state  ought 
to  do  better  than  this.  The  state  ought  to  bet  on  the 
forest  and  appropriate  its  money  to  buying  them  for 
the  people.  The  state  of  Maine  ought  to  spend  a  mil- 
lion dollars  every  two  years  on  buying  up  its  own  do- 
main for  the  people.  If  I  were  Governor,  or  a  candi- 
date for  Governor,  this  would  be  my  platform.  I  would 
buy  land  for  the  Folks.  Frederick  the  Great  did  it  and 
Prussia  is  somewhat  pummeling  us  because  her  taxes 
have  been  so  light  these  hundreds  of  years  because  of 
the  income  from  the  forests. 

I  was  reading  the  other  day  a  little  story  in  one  of 
Edward  Everett  Hale's  books  about  Bishop  Watson — 
he  wrote  the  "Apology,  you  know — !"  How  very  angry 
he  was  with  Charles  James  Fox  because  he  gave  him 
what  Watson  called  the  poorest  see  in  England!  But 
Watson  had  a  stubborn  streak  in  him  and  when  he 
found  himself  in  the  north  of  Wales,  where  the  sav- 
agery of  generations  had  destroyed  all  of  the  wood,  he 
put  in  his  time  and  his  sixpences  planting  firs  on 
ground  that  seemed  worthless.  He  outlived  the  six- 
year  period  and  kept  on  raising  seedling  firs  and  plant- 


118       JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

ing  them  and  when  he  died  his  people  found  themselves, 
to  their  surprise,  among  the  richest  men  in  England 
because  the  trees  had  grown,  while  their  father  was 
both  asleep  and  awake. 

In  1900,  Prussia  received  over  ten  million  dollars 
revenue  from  her  forests  after  they  had  paid  all  ex- 
penses of  care  and  development.  There  is  one  institu- 
tion in  Maine  that  is  almost  as  worthy  to  own  the  for- 
ests as  is  the  state — because  it  is  wise  under  a  great 
man — and  that  is  the  Great  Northern  Paper  Co.  Its 
President,  Garret  Schenck,  is  a  man  who  sees  over  six 
years  forward.  He  cuts  only  the  "crop"  of  trees — nev- 
er devastates.  He  is  a  "builder."  Would  that  there 
were  more  like  Garret  Schenck — a  man  whom  Maine 
ought  to  decorate  with  the  Legion  of  Honor. 

There  is  no  more  an  inborn  hatred  of  the  tree.  We 
have  begun  to  revere  it.  We  consider  as  wanton  and 
ruthless,  the  man  who  fells  a  beautiful  elm  for  com- 
merce. He  has  cut  down  and  killed  a  living  thing, 
something  beautiful  as  a  cathedral — in  its  way.  We 
look  to  forests  as  to  sanctuaries — taverns  of  rest  for 
our  very  souls ;  nearer  to  God  than  the  town ;  carpeted 
with  finer  tapestries  than  the  looms  can  make;  aisled 
with  silver  pathways  for  the  living  streams;  studded 
overhead  with  gold  and  jade  and  chrysoprase;  all  the 
while  beating  and  throbbing  with  the  free  music  of 
the  winds  in  the  trees — an  organ  whose  melodies  are 
supreme  and  sempiternal. 

Can't  we — a  free  people — do  something  to  save  for 
our  children  and  their  children,  every  year  a  little 
more  and  more  of  the  domain  of  this  sort — next  to  the 
church,  in  devotional  impulse,  better  than  some  hospi- 
tals in  its  healing  ?  I  vote  for  it !  Do  you  ?  If  you  do 
— say  so! 

I 


ON  "THE  GOLDEN  RULE  IN  DAILY  LIFE" 

BOUT  thirty-two  years  ago,  a  calendar  came  to 
my  desk  that  served  a  good  purpose. 

It  bore  on  the  top  of  it,  a  good-sized  pic- 
ture of  a  carpenter's  square  printed  in  bright 
gold  and,  under  it,  these  words,  "The  Golden 
Rule :  As  ye  would  that  others  should  do  unto 


you,  do  ye  even  so  unto  them." 

It  occurred  to  me  that  this  was  a  very  good  rule  in 
newspaper  reporting  and  that  if  followed,  it  would  save 
many  a  heart-burning ;  soothe  many  a  pillow ;  ease  over 
many  a  difficulty.  I  am  taking  no  credit  and  am  will- 
ing to  let  things  go  so  far  as  I  am  concerned,  as  I 
stand  conscious  of  many  shortcomings  and  many  fail- 
ures, but  none  the  less  sure,  this  rule  has  saved 
many  a  person  in  these  cities  in  these  thirty  years  or 
more  from  much  distress. 

"Put  yourself  in  the  other  fellow's  place."  A  small 
indiscretion;  a  lapse  from  the  straight  way;  a  chance 
for  the  newspaper  to  make  public  the  ignominy — all  of 
these  are  to  be  counted  as  tho  you,  yourself,  sad  and 
repentant,  faced  the  ignominy  of  the  big-type  and  the 
headliners  on  the  front  page.  There  is  no  power  so 
blighting  as  printer's  ink.  It  is  often  placed  in  the 
hands  of  immaturity.  A  mere  boy  may  hold  in  his 
hand  the  very  dynamite  of  publicity  that  may  blast 
homes,  break  hearts,  ruin  lives  and  weaken  hope.  Not 
that  crime,  wickedness  and  deceit  do  not  need  to  be 
scourged.  They  must  be.  Scorpion's  whips  are  not 
too  much  for  wilful  men  and  women  who  debase  public 
life  and  morals. 

But  the  golden  things  of  life  are  those  that,  after 
all,  have  not  been  printed.  I  recall  one  Christmas  eve 
when  a  father,  whose  wayward  son  had  been  appre- 
hended in  wrong-doing,  came  to  me  and  asked  for  con- 


120       JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

sideration  on  this  day  when  of  all  days  it  was  peace  on 
earth,  good-will  to  men.  It  was  a  serious  matter,  but 
repentance  was  on  its  way.  Yet  it  was  "news."  Yes,  it 
was  news.  But  it  was  something  else  than  news  also. 
It  was  condemnation.  The  story  never  happened.  The 
young  man  is  now  a  fine  and  capable  business  man. 
We  have  never  spoken  of  it  since,  but  I  doubt  not  that 
every  Christmas  day  he  says  something  to  himself 
about  it. 

It  is  safe  to  say  that  there  is  no  better  rule  of  con- 
duct in  life  than  this  one:  No  man  who  has  power  of 
any  kind  can  afford  to  slight  it.  It  applies  with  just  as 
much  force  and  effect  to  other  business  than  the  news- 
paper-business. But  in  a  thousand  ways  it  has  oper- 
ated in  the  life  of  this  business  to  far  greater  good  than 
can  be  measured. 

Try  it  out!  Look  at  everything  from  the  view- 
point of  the  other  man  or  woman.  Say  to  yourself, 
"Would  I  like  to  have  this  thing  done  to  me,  that  I  am 
proposing  to  do  to  my  fellow-man  ?"  If  you  are  going 
to  attack  a  man  personally,  even  if  you  have  the  goods, 
think  it  over :  "Is  this  in  the  interest  of  public  good,  or 
is  it  merely  to  satisfy  a  personal  spite  or  a  feeling  of 
revenge  ?"  And  then  ask,  "How  would  I  like  it,  under 
the  circumstances,  if  the  situation  were  reversed?" 

This  is  very  old  stuff.  It  was  said  a  very  great 
while  ago.  But  it  has  stood  the  test  of  time  and  a  bil- 
lion or  more  instances.  It  is  good  religion,  good  mor- 
als, good  business.  It  is  the  white  way.  It  is  the  help- 
ful way.  Society  never  suffered  from  it. 

If  the  Huns  had  only  thought  of  it,  there  would  have 
been  no  war — no  superman  philosophy,  no  reign  of 
frightfulness,  no  rapings  in  Belgium,  no  bayoneting  of 
helpless  non-combatants,  no  hereafter,  in  the  day  when 
the  grim  reckoning  will  be  made — here,  or  before  the 
Master.  Nearly  all  religion  is  comprised  in  it;  for  it 
suggests  the  adoption  of  the  first  commandment,  which 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES       121 

is  the  greatest:  "Thou  shalt  love  thy  God  with  all  thy 
heart  and  with  all  thy  soul  and  with  all  thy  strength, 
and  thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbor  as  thyself." 


ON  'THE  QUIETER  ROAD" 

FTER  you  have  driven  for  many  miles  on  a 
level,  man-made  road,  it  is  pleasant  to  turn 
aside  on  one  of  those  old-fashioned  country 
roads  that  seem  just  to  have  happened. 

They  meander  aimlessly  under  arching 
trees,  the  wheel-ruts  soft  to  the  tires  and 
making  no  sound.  You  can  see  no  distance  ahead  and 
are  therefore  content  to  drive  slowly  and  get  acquaint- 
ed with  a  friendly  road. 

There  is  spur  and  opportunity  for  thinking  in  the 
lazy  country  road.  In  the  first  place  you  have  been  go- 
ing too  fast,  anyway,  on  the  boulevard.  You  have  been 
burning  up  things — gasoline,  tires,  money,  nerves, 
time,  human-companionship,  home-ties.  You  have  been 
just  speeding  thru  the  air,  seeing  nothing,  eyes  fixed  on 
the  road,  straight-ahead  monotony  hour  by  hour,  day 
by  day,  mind  attuned  to  nothing  but  getting  there  and 
then  getting  elsewhere,  speed-mad. 

So — when  you  do  turn  aside  into  the  quiet  country 
road  for  a  time  and  lean  back,  perhaps  you  have  time 
to  notice  who  is  at  your  side.  She's  your  wife — I  hope. 
You  can  possibly  find  time  to  take  her  hand  as  you  did 
in  the  long  ago,  and  say  a  sweet  word  to  her.  Perhaps 
you  may  be  able  to  forget  business  long  enough  to  get 
sentimental.  It  will  do  no  harm — on  a  country  road — 
when  the  trees  arch  low  and  the  birds  chatter  love- 
lyrics.  You  can  perhaps  draw  a  long  breath  and  light 
a  cigar  and  go  so  slowly  that  the  smoke  will  rise  in  in- 
cense around  your  head  and  filter  thru  the  trees.  You 


122       JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

can  stretch  your  legs  and  unbutton  your  vest  and  be  a 
man.  You  can  inhale  long,  long  breaths  of  this  kind 
of  air  and  never  get  a  sniff  of  engine-exhaust.  This 
sort  of  a  road  leads  you  away  from  towns  and  tempta- 
tion, where  you  may  forget  in  what  country  you  are 
traveling.  You  notice  how  the  sunshine  checkers  the 
brown  earth  of  the  old  meandering  road  and  lies  also 
lovingly  on  your  garments.  To  be  decent  you  should 
ride  not  over  six  miles  an  hour — or  two — in  this  sanc- 
tuary. Otherwise  you  will  disturb  the  chipmunks  and 
disconcert  Madame  Partridge  and  send  her  scurrying 
away  with  her  brood.  If  it  is  the  right  kind  of  a  road 
— and  this  one  is  of  the  right  kind — you  will  meet  no 
one.  If  it  is  the  right  kind  of  a  road  even  the  guide- 
board  is  down  and  points  to  heaven  significantly  and 
very  truthfully — some  Harrison  or  Bethel  in  the  skies. 
You  may  even  stop  in  the  road  and  hear  no  horn 
of  displeasure  behind  you,  tooting  you  "off  the  earth." 
You  may  hear  a  stake-driver  or  a  whip-poor-will  or  see 
a  deer,  in  any  midsummer  day. 

It  is  the  road  on  which,  as  Thoreau  says  of  his  road 
"to  the  Corner,"  one  "can  walk  and  recover  the  lost 
child  that  I  am,  without  ringing  any  bell ;  where  noth- 
ing ever  was  discovered  to  detain  a  traveler;  where  I 
never  passed  trie  time  of  day  with  anyone — being  in- 
different to  arbitrary  divisions  of  time;  where  Tullius 
Hostilius  might  have  disappeared,  at  any  rate  has  nev- 
er been  seen."  The  pale  lobelia  and  the  Canada  snap- 
dragon, a  little  hardhack  and  meadow-sweet  peep  over 
the  fence,  nothing  more  serious  to  obstruct  the  view. 
A  road  that  passes  over  the  height  of  land  between 
earth  and  Heaven  separating  those  streams  that  flow 
earthward  from  those  that  flow  heavenward. 

About  six  miles  an  hour — I  have  suggested.  It  may 
bring  you  into  strange  clearings,  dooryards  that  run 
down  to  the  old  road.  These  casual  glimpses  of  life 
strengthen  the  pleasure  of  the  solitude,  as  you  run  on, 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES       123 

up  hill  and  down,  around  sly  corners  where  the  trees 
bend  to  the  road.  Just  a  bit  like  life  itself,  isn't  it! 
Off  the  boulevard — when  the  nerves  give  out !  Out  of 
the  sight  and  sound  of  traffic  when  the  tired  body  re- 
fuses longer  to  function.  Back  to  nature  when  the  old 
"doc"  takes  his  finger  off  your  pulse  and  says  "rest- 
cure  for  you." 

Why  not  quit  the  boulevard,  occasionally  now  and 
then  before  the  "old  doc"  warns  you?  Why  not  slow 
up  and  turn  into  some  old-fashioned  meandering  coun- 
try road,  where  it  makes  no  odds  which  way  you  fare 
whether  you  are  coming  or  going;  where  the  spirit  is 
free  and  the  soul  is  at  peace.  You  will  do  it  eventually 
— why  not  now? 


ON  "THE  TRUTH  WITHOUT  A  TEXT" 

E  ARE  ALL  under  sentence  of  death,  said 
Walter  Pater  in  a  famous  paragraph.  Hence 
we  should  not  spend  our  time  here  in  listless- 
ness  but  should  give  ourselves  up  to  art  and 
song. 

That  was  written  some  years  ago.  Of 
course  one  must  not  say  such  things  now.  Art  and 
song  are  out-of-date.  All  emotions  but  hate  and  desire 
o  kill  are  tabooed.  One  feels  himself  a  slacker  to  be 
talking  about  art  and  song — much  less  give  himself  up 
to  them.  Such  things  as  made  Shakespeare,  Milton, 
Wordsworth,  Goethe,  Michelangelo,  Tennyson,  Shelley 
— these  are  no  longer  to  be  compared  with  the 
Kaiser  and  his  sons.  It  used  to  be  a  common  phil- 
osophy that  art  and  song  and  literature  counted.  Now 
it  is  the  machine-gun  and  the  poison-shell.  But  after 
all— we  have  hopes.  We  believe  that  Truth  is  mighty. 


124       JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

These  days  of  anxiety  are  long.  Days  of  despair 
are  longer.  The  plain  fact  is  that  we  must  not  let  go 
of  art  and  song.  We  must  not  let  go  of  Truth  and 
Beauty  and  Goodness.  Whatever  happens,  we  must 
not  lose  faith  in  the  Providence  of  God.  We  must  go 
to  some  place  to  find  it  when  the  things  around  us  seem 
very  dark.  If  it  is  in  your  Bible,  seek  it.  If  it  is  at 
your  confessor's  knees,  seek  it.  Art  and  song  were 
about  all  of  Pater's  religion.  He  was  a  semi-pagan  of 
epicureanism.  Perhaps  YOU  have  something  else. 
Go  to  it.  But  whatever  you  do,  don't  give  up  even  if 
the  Germans  hammer  at  the  gates  of  America. 

One  of  the  best  remedies  in  this  troubled  age,  is  to 
do  your  bit  every  day  and  then  take  a  walk  into  the 
fields  and  woods.  They  are  tuneful  of  the  thrush,  which 
is  not  yet  aware  of  being  a  slacker,  and  all  blossoming 
with  the  posies,  unaware  that  this  is  the  era  of  fright- 
fulness.  Out  there  a  man  has  a  right  to  lift  his  head 
and  smile  into  the  face  of  God.  He  is  no  slacker,  walk- 
ing in  a  field.  He  is  no  shirker,  seeking  the  solution  of 
the  mystery  of  the  sentence  of  death,  out  where  the 
blossoms  scent  the  air.  If  it  be  wrong  to  give  thought 
to  art  and  song,  why  thus  do  trail  and  bloom  all  the 
flowers  of  Milton's  "Lycidas,"  Arnold's  "Thyrsis"  and 
Shelley's  "Question?" 

Hills  erode;  oak-trees  fall;  but  they  outlast  dynas- 
ties. As  I  have  said,  poppies  spring  from  crater-pits. 
Nature  cannot  be  beaten  or  gassed;  or  driven  beyond 
the  Marne.  If  you  go  into  the  June  woods  and  lie  on 
your  back  at  noon,  you  may  see  the  eagle  nesting  her 
young — a  liberty  that  symbolizes  our  national  hopes. 
The  trees  stand  very  erect  and  independent.  If  they 
fall,  they  fertilize.  If  they  pass  the  season  and  become 
dead  in  foliage,  they  have  seeded  new  patches  on  which 
the  sunlight  falls.  Here  is  life-eternal,  unending, 
resurrectionary.  If  this  were  undisturbed  a  billion 
years,  still  would  Nature  keep  on  reproducing  its  ener- 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES       125 

gies.  It  is  the  work  of  God  alone.  Man  never  had  a 
hand  in  it.  It  is  the  Creator's  own  garden-spot.  Here 
He  shows  you  what  is  what.  Who's  who  does  not 
count.  Here  are  color,  art,  song,  religion,  purpose, 
divinity.  Go  out  and  find  them. 

And  if  you  stay  until  evening  and  the  slant  rays  of 
the  sun  linger  among  the  tree-trunks  as  thru  stained 
glass  windows  in  the  cathedral  of  pillars,  and  the  day 
grows  grave  and  reverend,  you  may  look  up  thru  the 
branches  and  see  the  evening  stars. 

Perhaps  there  is  one  for  you. 

If  so,  it  will  surely  comfort  and  uplift  you.  And 
this  is  no  sermon.  It  is  the  cold  truth,  without  a  text. 


ON  THE  "LADIES" 

HE  "ladie"  (or  rather  "woman,"  which  is  the 
preferable  term  because  it  is  older)  is  es- 
sential. There  were  no  "ladies"  in  the  Bible 
but  there  were  a  number  of  women.  If  they 
had  not  been  essential,  it  is  very  likely  that 
man  would  have  tried  to  get  along  without 
them  and  save  expenses.  Adam  tried  it  a  couple  of 
days  and  caved  in.  They  have  since  been  taken  on  as 
a  regular  thing  and  are  now  saving  the  world  for  de- 
mocracy with  war-bread. 

Inasmuch  as  they  have  been  in  the  world  quite  a 
while,  it  is  customary  to  say  that  the  ladies  have  ad- 
vanced in  power  and  in  liberty.  And  this  is  probably 
true.  Take  some  of  the  notable  women  and  think  how 
they  were  held  back  in  the  old  days.  There  was  Joan 
of  Arc!  Kept  under  an  apple  tree  until  she  was  six- 
teen years  old,  or  thereabout,  she  was  let  loose  in  armor 
and  so  repressed  by  the  conservative  spirit  of  the  times 
that  all  she  was  permitted  to  do  was  to  storm  a  few 


126       JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

cities,  capture  a  few  princes,  crown  a  king  or  two,  con- 
fute the  learned  judges  at  her  trial,  save  a  nation 
and  die  in  the  flames  of  martyrdom  to  rise  from  her 
ashes  to  be  the  Voice,  the  appeal,  the  spiritual  salva- 
tion of  a  nation.  Consider  the  idle  and  repressed  ex- 
istence of  Cleopatra !  There  was  a  woman  who  might 
have  made  something  of  herself  if  she  had  been  given 
half  a  chance.  She  was  only  a  Queen  of  Egypt  and  a 
few  other  communities,  roaming  around  in  barges, 
dressed  in  nothing  but  a  camisole ;  setting  modern  fash- 
ions and  working  out  the  fate  of  a  few  Roman  poten- 
tates. Nothing  but  serfdom,  that's  what!  Then 
there  was  Lucretia  Borgia!  A  timid,  shrinking  thing! 
Think  what  a  bully  good  Red  Cross  she  would  be  today 
in  Kaiser  Bill's  immediate  family.  What  a  boon  she 
would  be  to  society  if  she  could  only  be  over  there  mix- 
ing cooling  drinks  for  the  Hohenzollern  family.  Then 
there  was  that  blushing  violet  of  a  woman,  Queen 
Elizabeth.  What  a  place  would  she  take  today  in  soci- 
ety. I  can  see  her  now,  taking  her  place  as  a  "lady" 
among  women,  dancing  the  fox-trot  in  perfect  freedom 
and  perspiring  freely  in  a  peekaboo  waist  with  pink 
ribbons  showing  daintily  thru.  Poor  Queen  Elizabeth  I 
She  never  really  had  a  chance.  No  more  did  Boadicea 
or  Sappho  or  Molly  Pitcher  or  a  number  of  other 
women. 

Of  course  we  hear  a  good  deal  more  about  the  ladies 
now  than  we  used  to  and  we  see  a  good  deal  more  of 
them.  That  is,  so  to  speak,  if  one's  eyesight  is  good. 
It  appears  from  what  one  may  hear  and  see,  even  if  he 
does  wear  bi-f  ocal  spectacles — that  woman  is  emerging 
from  her  hitherto  environment.  But  I  don't  know 
about  that.  Eve  had  some  environment.  Of  course 
she  really  made  the  fashions  and  had  no  rivals.  The 
Vogue  was  simple  in  her  day,  but  she  did  her  best. 
And  in  some  sense  she  was  ahead  of  her  time.  And 
she  was  not  extravagant.  Nobody  can  say  that  of  Eve, 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES       127 

when  he  looks  back,  and,  as  Mark  Twain  says,  sees  our 
simple  and  lowly  first  of  women  garbed  in  her  modifi- 
cation of  Harry  Lauder's  Highland  costume. 

So,  in  my  humble  opinion,  woman  has  not  changed 
so  much.  Some  men  have  tried  to  keep  her  back,  but 
they  have  not  succeeded.  They  have  tried  to  keep  her 
brains  in  chains ;  but  you  will  notice  that  it  has  been  a 
hard  job.  It  is  no  longer  possible  to  deny  her  the  pos- 
session of  a  soul,  an  entity  whose  future  is  hers  to  de- 
termine, in  all  freedom  under  the  law.  She  has  the 
same  right  that  man  has  to  the  establishment  of  her 
service  to  the  world,  by  work,  by  voice,  by  vote. 

And  spiritually,  in  the  sympathy  of  her  service,  she 
far  transcends  man.  The  world  is  full  of  Florence 
Nightingales,  today.  They  are  all  over  the  death- 
strewn  fields  of  Flanders  and  Verdun.  They  are  hourly 
playing  the  part  of  hero  with  stout  hearts  and  un- 
thinking altruism.  And  they  are  suffering  losses — 
deep  wounds  in  the  heart  of  hearts,  where  the  first- 
born cuddled  and  crooned.  We  talk  a  lot  about  emanci- 
pation of  woman.  But  bear  this  in  mind — whenever 
she  had  a  chance — as  queen  or  warrior,  or  poet,  or 
preacher,  or  physician,  or  nurse,  or  scientist  or  cab- 
driver,  she  has  made  good.  The  only  agency  from 
which  she  needs  to  be  emancipated  is  the  narrow,  two- 
bit-wide  opinion  of  the  so-called  man,  who  calls  her  a 
lower  order  of  creation,  and  who  does  not  know  what 
creation  means,  as  addressed  to  the  human  soul. 


ON  "THE  PRICE  OF  A  GOOD  TIME" 


SAW  a  moving-picture  the  other  day  entitled 
"The  Price  of  a  Good  Time."  It  was  intended 
to  show  that  girls  cannot  monkey  with 
conventions,  unless  tragedy  may  follow. 

So  far,  it  was  a  fine  picture.  The  poor  girl 
was  led  to  suicide  and  the  man  went  scot  free. 
And  the  other  woman  in  the  picture  was  softened  and 
induced  to  put  oif  the  garb  of  snobbishness.  This 
seemed  tough.  The  girl  was  the  least  guilty  in  the 
whole  crowd.  But  she  had  to  pay.  And  that  is  the 
rule. 

So  girls  better  look  out!  They  have  to  pay  for 
good  times  with  usury.  Others  pay  for  them  fre- 
quently at  going  prices.  The  man  who  eats  hot-sup- 
pers to  excess,  pays  for  the  good  time  with  a  warty 
liver  and  "Bright's."  The  wine-bibber  pays  for  his 
time  with  a  headache.  The  money-grubber  and  miser 
pays  for  his  "Good  Time"  by  having  his  heirs  fight  over 
his  will.  The  Speed-demon  pays  for  his  good  time  in  a 
smash-up.  The  man  who  takes  revenge  into  his  own 
hand  and  whose  idea  of  a  "Good  Time"  is  carried  into 
effect,  dies  in  the  Chair  or  passes  his  days  in  a  prison. 
But  the  girl  pays  the  highest  price  of  all.  There  was 
an  indelible  mark  on  the  Magdalene. 

But  in  this  picture,  the  stress  was  laid  on  the  home, 
from  which  this  particular  girl  went  to  her  "Good 
Time."  It  was  a  tough-looking  home.  Colors  are  laid 
on  moving  pictures  with  a  broad  brush.  Here  was  a 
brother,  preaching  anarchism ;  a  disagreeable  mother ; 
a  paralytic  father,  who  had  to  be  fed  with  a  spoon  and 
who  dribbled  his  bread  and  milk  over  his  chin.  This 
was  shown  as  a  foil  to  a  happy  home  in  which  the  girl 
had  no  need  to  go  elsewhere  for  her  fun.  This  was,  of 
course,  the  home  of  one  of  those  care-free  and  portly 
persons,  known  as  the  traffic-cop.  His  home  was 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES       129 

sweet.  His  girl  could  have  her  "steady"  come  every 
evening  and  sit  on  the  door-steps.  Not  so  the  other 
girl.  Her  home-life  was  cold,  hard,  full  of  nagging, 
sordid,  depressing.  She  went,  therefore,  where  she 
could  have  her  "Good  Time."  And  she  settled. 

This  is  a  very  old  story  and  very  crudely  told;  but 
there  is  truth  in  it  and  the  kind  of  truth  that  has  to  be 
enforced  frequently,  lest  we  forget.  Girls  who  have 
good  homes,  sometimes  seem  to  lack  appreciation,  but 
as  a  rule  they  are  not  so  apt  to  be  driven  to  the  streets 
by  this  modern  lust  for  a  "Good  Time."  At  any  rate, 
the  household  where  there  is  fun  and  laughter  and 
friendship  and  sweet  forbearance,  is  not  so  apt  to  have 
its  tragedies.  And  if  it  does  have  them,  there  is  no 
recrimination.  Those  who  have  made  it  a  "home," 
have  at  least  done  their  best.  The  filial  love — a  sweeter 
thing  does  not  exist — could  not  have  been  extin- 
guished there!  It  must  have  been  trampled  on,  out- 
side the  premises,  by  some  Hun. 

So,  most  people  who  saw  the  picture,  found  a  fairly 
good  lesson  in  it.  And  there  are  a  lot  of  good  lessons 
in  the  movies.  They  are  often  enforced  with  a  blud- 
geon, so  to  speak,  but  they  get  there  mostly.  If  any 
girl  in  the  audience  was  touched  by  this  picture  to  the 
degree  of  pledging  herself  to  count  the  cost  of  "good 
times"  before  breaking  the  rule  of  "Safety  First"  for 
her  name,  her  good  repute,  her  mother's  heart,  her  fa- 
ther's faith — it  has  done  a  work  that  the  church  may 
emulate. 

The  "Good  Time"  is  quickly  over.  The  long,  long 
life  stretches  before  you.  You  don't  want  to  walk  its 
pathway  as  a  social,  a  moral  cripple,  but  upright,  with 
the  crown  of  womanhood  like  a  halo  and  the  sense  of 
devotion  and  righteousness  as  supporting  arms. 


ON  "THE  WIND  AND  THE  SOUL" 

NE  day  last  fall  I  went  into  the  woods,  under 
the  shadow  of  Little  Spencer  mountain,  not 
so  very  far  from  the  Canadian  border.  It 
was  a  Sunday  and  the  winds  were  blowing  an 
October  gale  until  the  ponds  were  full  of 
racing  white-caps  and  the  beaches  lashed 
themselves  white  with  foam  and  the  torn  roots  of  the 
lily  pads  tossed  high  into  the  shore  grasses,  dripping 
with  the  water. 

The  path  was  along  "the  blazed  trail"  to  the  old 
lumber-camps — a  peaceful  path,  among  very  large  first- 
growth  spruce,  over  a  running  brook  and,  all  of  the 
while,  in  a  dense  solitude  that  had  no  roads  or  paths 
save  the  blazed  trail.  It  was  after  two  o'clock  in  the 
afternoon  and  the  sun  was  westering  thru  the  tops  of 
the  trees,  but  below  all  was  faintly  lighted  as  are  the 
deep  woods. 

It  was  the  gale  in  the  tree-tops  that  got  me.  It 
sounded  with  the  swaying  and  groaning  and  the  sweep- 
ing on,  wave  after  wave,  most  like  the  riding  of  Huns 
on  the  "coursers  of  the  air."  I  sat  on  a  huge  tree  whose 
trunk,  broken  in  some  gale,  had  fallen  over  the  trail. 
Say!  Everyone  ought  to  go  out  alone  and  get  ac- 
quainted with  himself  some  day  like  this  when  the 
wind  blows  and  Nature  is  rioting. 

All  of  the  elves  of  the  upper  world  seemed  to  be 
playing  up  there.  No  one  knows  what  strange  fancies 
may  come  and  what  poem  may  come  from  it. 

I  wrote  something  and  left  it  where  I  wrote  it  on 
the  clean  scarf  of  the  prostrate  spruce,  which  I  made 
with  my  hunting  knife.  I  expect  it  was  a  poor  verse. 
But  I  remember  that  then  I  thought  it  fine  because  I 
was  deeply  moved  by  the  music — the  "immense"  music 
that  played  in  a  great  symphony  overhead.  And  the 
other  day— what  do  you  suppose  happened!  A  man 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES       131 

came  into  the  office  and  asked  for  me.  His  name  was 
Ralph  Cuddy.  Said  he,  "I  saw,  last  winter,  on  a  tree  in 
the  woods  near  Moosehead,  way  in  by  a  brook  that  lies 
next  to  a  swamp,  some  verses  you  wrote  and  signed 
about  the  wind  in  the  tree-tops.  I  was  thinking  about 
them  today.  I  live  in  Portland.  I  had  to  come  to 
Lewiston.  I  decided  to  come  in  and  see  you.  I  am 
going  right  back  into  the  woods.  I  want  to  hear  the 
waves  on  the  beaches.  I  want  to  hear  the  wind  in  the 
trees." 

Now  the  wind  is  a  mystery  and  a  friend  and  a  foe 
and  a  spur  to  wicked  consciences  and  a  balm  to  the  sick 
and  a  strange  babbler.  It  is  a  night  friend  crooning  in 
the  chimney.  It  is  a  wild  and  dissipated  roisterer 
howling  around  corners  of  dark  nights  like  drunken 
men  in  orgies.  It  is  a  banshee  picking  at  the  shutters 
and  rattling  windows.  It  is  a  horde  of  furies  in  storms 
as  I  have  heard  them  in  the  Gulf  Stream  when  ships 
were  going  down  to  sea.  It  is  a  fine  companion  for  the 
striding  heart  of  him  who  goes  afield  just  to  see  the 
clouds  a-dancing.  It  is  the  piping  of  Peter  Pan,  if  you 
like.  It  is  the  music  of  a  summer  night.  It  is  the  kiss  of 
angels,  on  weary  foreheads.  It  is  the  long,  deep,  in- 
drawn breath  of  the  planet  and  its  exhalation.  Oh, 
man !  There  are  as  many  winds  as  you  and  all  you  love 
may  have  of  moods.  It  is  a  sigh,  a  song,  a  discord,  a 
dithyramb.  The  wind  soft-foots  around  sometimes 
in  the  woods  like  some  animate  thing.  You  can  seem 
to  see  it  watching  you  from  behind  a  bush.  It  draws 
near,  as  Browning  says,  "with  a  running  hush."  It  is 
the  voice  of  just  one  thing — life!  for  without  it  the 
world  would  be  dead.  It  is  the  breath  of  Nature  thru 
all  its  innumerable  throats  waking  the  world  to  a  great 
choral  chant,  for  the  glory  of  God ! 

Now  that  is  not  at  all  what  I  wrote  on  the  clean, 
white  wood  of  the  scarfed  spruce  last  fall  up  there  in 
the  woods.  A  chap  has  a  right  to  be  sentimental  in  the 


132       JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

woods,  provided  he  does  not  impose  it  on  any  one. 
But  just  the  same,  I  would  not  give  up  the  friendship 
that  I  have  for  the  wind,  in  all  of  its  phases,  for  any 
other  thing  in  nature.  The  beating  rains,  the  wild 
gales!  They  soothe  and  refresh.  They  seem  broth- 
erly. And  often  I  have  had  the  notion,  that  in  the  last 
hour — the  last  heart-beat,  the  wind,  that  loves  us  best, 
comes  along  from  its  waiting  thru  all  the  ages  and 
takes  care  of  the  little  new  soul  of  us,  just  unfurling  its 
wings  for  "the  new  adventure"  and  upbears  it  and  leads 
it  safely  on,  to  the  place  appointed  for  it  from  the  be- 
ginning and  so  on  world  without  end,  forever  and 
forever. 


ON  "THE  APPEAL  OF  MYSTERY" 

HERE  is  a  memory  of  old  times  that  most  of 
us  have  now,  undiminished  by  the  years  that 
have  passed.  And  that  is  the  early  morning 
arrival  of  the  circus.  How  we  did  love  to  get 
up  and  see  the  circus  come  in. 

I  don't  mean  the  modern  circus  that  came 


by  railroad  train,  last  year,  but  the  circus  that  came  in 
over  the  road,  fifty  years  ago — Stone  and  Murray's,  for 
instance,  with  its  band  wagon  drawn  by  forty  white 
horses.  Count  them !  For-r-r-rty  Hors-s-s-es ! 

"Here  they  come !"  Dim  thru  the  morning  mist  a 
cloud  of  dust;  the  creaking  of  wagons;  indistinct 
sounds  that  we  conjured  into  roaring  of  wild  hyenas 
and  ravening  of  tigers  and  the  bleeding  of  behemoths. 
Every  marvel  that  had  adorned  the  sides  of  barns  for 
weeks — we  anticipated  and  we  expected  to  see;  and 
every  glimpse  out  there  on  the  roadside  (barefooted 
boys  with  more  wonders  before  them  than  any  circus 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES       133 

could  ever  give)  was  just  so  much,  pilfered  from  the 
show,  whose  admission  was  the  untold  sum  of  a  quar- 
ter of  a  dollar. 

Then  the  dusty  trail  behind  the  show  to  town;  the 
stay  at  the  circus  ground  lugging  water  to  assuage  the 
thirst  of  the  elephant;  the  forgotten  breakfast;  the 
tired  lad  trudging  home  about  eleven  o'clock  to  get 
mother's  tender  comfort  on  his  absence ;  the  nap  before 
dinner ;  the  return  to  the  circus-ground ;  the  afternoon 
show ;  the  evening  regrets  not  to  be  able  to  see  it  again ; 
the  side-shows  and  ballyhoos;  the  visions  of  actors  in 
tights  thru  the  open  fly  of  the  dressing  tent ;  the  sight 
of  the  circus-people  eating  supper;  the  smells  of  the 
sawdust  and  the  animals — it  is  a  composite  picture  of 
the  boyhood  experiences  of  every  man. 

What  was  the  lure  of  the  circus?  It  was  the  lure 
of  the  greatest  joy  of  life — mystery.  The  mystery  of 
people  is  their  greatest  charm.  Those  people  who  are 
commonplace,  who  never  do  the  unexpected,  have  no 
charm  in  the  common  use  of  the  word.  The  lure  of 
books  that  endure  is — mystery.  A  man  writes  a 
learned  book  telling  you  all  about  life.  Poor  man! 
With  maybe  fifty  years  of  experience,  telling  you  the 
secret  of  life.  Better  read  the  Adventure  of  the  Valor- 
ous Knight  Quixote  de  la  Mancha.  We  link  arms  in 
companionship  with  the  man  who  has  charm  even  if 
he  is  short  on  facts ;  for,  after  all,  we  use  learning  given 
us  much  as  we  use  money  and  spread  it  around  and 
have  small  regard  for  the  person  who  gives  it  to  us.  It 
is  current  coin  hard  to  get  and  not  so  interesting  ex- 
cept for  its  uses.  But  the  mystery-man — him  we  love 
and  follow. 

To  boyhood  eyes  the  circus  opened  new  worlds.  So, 
too,  ever  since  in  life  we  have  been  hunting  for  new 
worlds.  Some  go  to  strange  lands  and  over  seas  and 
into  the  desert  and  over  the  mountain  tops  to  find  an- 
swer to  the  desire. 


134       JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

This  instinctive  craving  was  planted  for  some  pur- 
pose— thus  to  be  a  ruling  passion  of  man.  The  appeal 
to  crawl  under  the  tent  to  see  the  glories  on  the  other 
side!  The  glimpses  of  strange  creatures  in  gold  and 
tinsel!  The  desire  not  for  facts  alone  but  for  things 
never  seen  on  sea  or  land!  The  eager  yearning  for 
visions  of  some  new  apocalypse  not  in  our  native  vil- 
lage! All  these  are  implanted  in  every  man  in  some 
degree — in  some  more  than  in  others. 

What  is  it  all  but  a  part  of  the  elemental  dower  of 
humankind  that  reaches  out  in  the  finite  for  what  is  to 
be  found  only  in  the  infinite. 

So  when  we  small  boys  in  the  dry  and  dusty  dawn 
a  half  a  century  ago,  and  when  you  boys  of  this  later 
age  get  up  to  see  the  circus — you  are  simply  responding 
to  the  call  of  Adam  and  Eve — to  know  mystery ! 


ON  "THEM  PANTS" 

OODROW  WILSON'S  advent  into  high  society 
in  London  reminds  me  of  my  own — it  is  so 
different.  And  as  one  must  occasionally 
lapse  into  the  autobiographical,  my  readers 
will  forgive  me  if  I  digress  a  bit  and  call  their 
attention  to  a  down-easter  in  London  one 
October  evening  in  1900. 

It  was  the  close  of  the  first  day  and  as  in  duty 
bound  it  was  my  desire  to  make  a  stir  in  London,  like 
any  true  American — Mr.  Wilson  included.  So  before 
leaving  Maine,  I  bought  a  pair  of  trousers,  designed  by 
a  Lewiston  tailor  and  warranted  to  be  made  on  the 
architecture  of  the  latest  word  in  London  as  seen  on  a 
red  and  blue  plate  in  the  tailor-shop.  As  I  recall  it  the 
pants  were  red,  in  the  picture,  but  I  chose  a  more  mod- 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES       135 

est  color.  As  we  came  into  Paddington,  the  city  was 
packed  with  returning  Boer  war  veterans,  the  City  Im- 
perial Volunteers,  and  it  was  impossible  to  get  a  hotel 
nearer  in  the  city,  so  we  stopped  at  this  beautiful  ter- 
minal tavern.  I  did  my  duty  to  London  by  buying  a 
high  hat.  Nobody  really  was  anybody,  in  London,  in 
those  days,  without  a  high  hat.  And  that  night  a  very 
clever  and  stylish  looking  New  York  gentleman  who 
had  been  living  in  London,  came  over  to  the  hotel  to 
take  our  party  out  for  an  evening  in  select  society. 
We  had  a  fine  little  company  of  fellow-travelers,  ladies 
and  gentlemen  with  us,  and  I  decided  to  make  London 
sit  up  and  take  notice  with  my  new  trousers — other- 
wise, "them  pants." 

I  went  up  to  my  room  to  dress.  The  pants  had  never 
been  taken  from  the  original  package,  but  hung  in  all 
their  flowing  beauty  in  the  wardrobe  in  the  fine  old  ma- 
hogany room  that  we  occupied.  As  I  took  them  down, 
they  seemed  to  be  indescribably  long  and  flowing. 
They  seemed  to  be  ells  and  ells  longer  than  any  pants 
I  had  ever  owned  before ;  but  there  they  were,  just  as  I 
had  picked  them ;  just  as  I  had  plucked  them.  I  stood 
them  up  straight  on  the  carpet  and  the  button  of  the 
top  looked  me  square  in  the  eye.  They  had  rotundity. 
They  had  slack  behind;  they  had  breadth  across  the 
crupper,  that  I  never  thought  measured  my  girth.  A 
sinking  of  the  heart  befell  me.  With  feverish  haste  I 
stepped  into  those  pants,  aware  that  the  eyes  of  royalty 
and  the  ladies  might  rest  upon  them.  I  reached  for 
the  seat  of  those  pants  and  lo !  I  was  lost. 

Dear  friends!  Picture  me — a  hurried  departure 
from  Lewiston ;  a  pair  of  pants  built  on  impulse ;  the 
only  pair  I  had  for  the  tout  ensemble  that  went  with 
my  new  tall-hat ;  the  only  pair  that  went  with  a  frock 
coat  of  the  vintage  of  1899 ;  the  only  pair  of  pants  in 
London,  and  the  guests  hammering  on  the  door  with 
theater  tickets  in  their  hands.  What  did  I  do  ?  Neces- 


136      JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

sity  is  the  mother  of  safety-pins.  I  pulled  the  pants 
up  and  took  four  cleats  across  the  western  front.  I 
looped  up  eleven  yards  across  the  Rhine ;  I  turned  them 
up  around  the  bottoms;  I  drew  in  the  jibsheet  and 
furled  the  mizzen-mast  of  "them  pants."  I  laid  away 
yards  and  yards  of  slack  in  the  dome  of  "them  pants." 
I  pulled  them  flat  over  the  abdomen  but  the  conceal- 
ment in  the  rear  beat  the  rubbish  in  a  back-alley.  I  held 
the  waistband  of  "them  pants"  in  my  teeth  while  I  took 
up  plaits  in  the  region  of  the  pocket.  I  had  to  stand  on 
a  chair  to  get  into  the  watch-pocket  of  "them  pants."  I 
could  have  rented  the  ell  and  a  couple  of  furnished  flats 
in  "them  pants"  and  then  had  enough  of  "them  pants" 
left  to  build  a  Y.  M.  C.  A.  block.  Once  I  fell  into  them 
and  almost  smothered  to  death.  If  I  put  both  hands 
into  the  pants  pocket  at  the  same  time,  I  caught  myself 
stealing  money.  I  could  have  put  all  my  baggage  and 
a  hair  mattress  in  the  seat  of  "them  pants"  and  then 
had  more  room  than  there  is  in  a  union  station.  If  I 
had  happened  to  have  fallen  down  in  them,  I  would 
have  crawled  out  of  the  leg. 

But  I  wore  'em.  I  had  to,  and  as  I  buttoned  my 
vest  over  the  top  of  the  pants  and  stepped  jauntily  into 
the  midst  of  the  waiting  throng  of  friends,  I  felt  like 
William  H.  Taft.  We  passed  thru  many  adventures 
that  evening.  I  sat  on  safety  pins ;  I  looked  down  into 
the  bosom  of  my  vest  and  saw  the  hem  of  "them  pants" 
slowly  rising  to  engulf  me,  and  then  I  took  a  walk. 
Three  times  I  narrowly  escaped  having  my  tall  hat 
pushed  off  by  rising  of  the  pants.  Once  the  hem  got 
into  a  cup  of  tea  that  we  were  taking  with  the  ladies — 
sort  of  dropped  over  into  the  nectar.  Once  I  looked 
behind  me  on  Piccadilly  and  the  pants  were  chasing  me 
like  a  trail  of  crime.  Once  in  a  London  club,  they 
p:cked  up  several  safety  pins  where  I  arose. 

All  things  end.  I  came  home  to  my  room  at  two 
a.m.  My  room-mate,  who  had  been  elsewhere,  sat 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES       137 

th'ere.  .  He  weighed  three  hundred  and  four.  He  had 
one  leg  in  the  seat  of  a  pair  of  pants.  Said  he :  "Who  in 
hell  packed  a  little  boy's  pants  in  my  bag?  Who  in  the 
name  of  Tophet  has  built  me  a  pair  of  trousers,  age 
seven  years?  I  got  into  these  about  an  hour  ago,  to 
try  them  on,  and  say !  They  aren't  fit  for  publication. 
If  I  had  that  dam  tailor—" 

But  why  pursue  the  subject.  I  had  been  dragging 
the  seat  of  his  new  trousers  all  over  London  and  he  had 
been  trying  to  strangle  himself  in  mine.  London  never 
knew  the  secret;  but  they  date  certain  things  in  Lon- 
don from  the  advent  of  "them  pants,"  just  the  same. 


ON  "THE  CLOCK  OF  THE  CENTURIES" 


NE  THOUGHT  persists  with  me  that  I  have 
never  been  able  to  express  effectively,  and 
probably  I  cannot  now.  It  is  this:  Every 
day  that  ever  passed  on  earth  was  the  latest, 
the  up-to-date  day. 

When  Noah  built  the  Ark,  he  undoubtedly 
felt  himself  a  modern.  He  looked  back  on  Adam  as 
ancient  history.  When  Sodom  and  Gomorrah  fell  it 
was  the  greatest  calamity  that  had  ever  happened. 
The  Greeks  thought  that  they  had  arrived.  They 
believed  that  they  had  reached  the  pinnacle  and  that 
further  progress  was  impossible.  They  prided  them- 
selves on  their  culture,  their  religion,  their  society,  their 
art,  their  learning.  They  were  fin-de-siecle.  Their 
dandies  were  the  last  word  and  their  theaters  and  their 
games  the  triumph  of  artistic  expression. 

Some  day,  a  thousand  years  hence — what  will  be 
said  of  this  age  ?    We  have  the  printing-press,  we  have 


138       JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

many  electrical  discoveries.  The  air,  the  seas,  under 
the  seas,  the  earth  at  our  control,  so  far  as  transporta- 
tion is  concerned.  How  will  we  stand?  Are  we 
already  old-fashioned  with  our  wars  and  our  brutali- 
ties? 

An  eminent  professor  of  history  and  mathematics 
has  enforced  the  thought  by  an  effort  of  the  imagina- 
tion. He  has  fancied  a  gigantic  clock  that  records  not 
days,  hours,  minutes.  These  are  all  too  small.  His  clock 
records  no  space  of  time  smaller  than  a  century.  Prof. 
James  Henry  Robinson  of  Columbia  University  reckons 
that  man  has  been  on  earth  about  240,000  years. 
There  are  many  different  opinions  on  this  subject,  but 
Prof.  Robinson's  is  as  good  as  any.  If  it  be  true  that 
man  has  stood  erect,  tail-less  and  thinking  for  himself 
for  240,000  years,  each  hour  on  the  clock  represents 
20,000  years,  for  we  call  ourselves  now  at  noon — just 
for  the  fun  of  it.  Each  minute  is  300  years.  Each 
second  is  five  years.  Think  of  that — a  clock  which 
ticks  a  second  only  once  in  five  years.  A  clock  that 
ticks  off  a  minute  only  in  three  centuries ! 

Now  how  does  that  clock  look?  What  think  you 
happened  in  the  dawn  and  in  the  morning  hours  of  the 
slow-moving  clock?  Absolutely  nothing  happened  up 
to  half-past  eleven  o'clock!  It  was  actually  11.40  a.m. 
before  the  first  record  of  Babylonian  and  Greek  cul- 
ture appears.  Greek  Philosophy  was  born  at  11.50. 
And  that  leaves  us  only  ten  minutes  for  all  of  recorded 
history.  Think  of  it— only  3,000  years  out  of  the  240,- 
000  of  which  we  know  the  remotest  thing !  It  was  only 
a  little  more  than  11.56  that  the  English  nation  became 
dominated  by  William  The  Conqueror.  It  was  only 
two  minutes  ago  that  America  was  discovered.  It  was 
only  two  minutes  ago  that  printing  from  movable  type 
was  discovered  as  an  art.  The  United  States  has  been 
a  nation  less  than  a  minute. 

In  short  it  has  been  only  a  minute  or  so  that  we 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES       139 

have  actually  been  awake — as  we  see  it.  But  the  noon 
will  move  on  and  on.  And  each  hour  will  be  the  latest 
syllable  of  recorded  time  and  each  day  will  be  the  last 
word.  And  each  yesterday  will  rise  above  our  lowly 
graves  as  old,  old,  old.  When  this  clock  ticks  out  an- 
other minute  and  three  more  centuries  have  elapsed, 
what  will  be  our  place  in  the  world  ?  Will  it  stand  for 
rehabilitation  and  progress,  or  retrogression  and  de- 
apair  ?  The  brave  men  living  and  dead  on  the  fields  of 
Europe  must  make  answer.  They  and  we,  who  are 
with  them  or  against  them  here  at  home,  and  the  spirit 
of  justice,  dormant  in  lands  now  oppressed  by  militar- 
ism, must  settle  the  question. 


ON  "THE  INTOLERABLE" 

N  OLD  Roman  philosopher  says,  "Don't  take 
upon  yourself  the  burden  of  your  whole  life 
at  any  one  time,  nor  form  an  image  of  all 
probable  misfortunes.  In  any  emergency,  ask 
yourself,  "What  is  there  intolerable  in  this?" 
In  other  words,  it  will  be  better  not  to  bor- 
row trouble  and  not  to  look  too  far  ahead  into  the  dark- 
ness. Better  make  the  best  of  present  conditions  and 
confront  the  beast  in  the  woods  when  you  meet  him. 
He  may  not  be  there ! 

Thus,  many  people  are  continually  settling  ques- 
tions that  never  come  up.  Conditions  change  and  the  is- 
sue you  feared  never  materializes.  It  is  well  to  do  the 
best  you  can  for  today  and  so  order  your  life  that  you 
will  be  in  good  shape  to  meet  all  emergencies,  but  as  for 
conjuring  up  bogies  and  fussing  over  things  that  you 
are  not  sure  will  happen — it  is  a  waste  of  time. 

For  instance,  I  know  a  young  person  who  upset  two 


140       JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

households  over  settling  the  question  whether  or  not 
the  two  young  people  of  those  households  should  room 
together  in  college,  a  year  or  so  hence.  It  made  a  tre- 
mendous fuss.  One  of  them  failed  to  get  into  college. 
Exit — problem ! 

There  is  a  whole  lot  of  value  in  a  certain  form  of 
procrastination.  I  don't  mean  procrastination  of  im- 
mediate duty.  I  urge  rather  the  putting  off  of  the 
absolute  settlement  of  many  things  until  they  have  to 
be  settled.  I  urge  this,  for  in  reality,  prompt  and  sen- 
sible judgment  is  to  be  made  only  on  the  basis  of  exist- 
ing circumstances,  not  on  the  basis  of  circumstances  as 
you  fancy  they  may  be  at  some  future  time.  Prompt 
judgment,  wise  dealing  are  best  made  in  the  conditions 
of  the  moment,  but  it  is  not  possible  to  settle  today  a 
state  of  affairs  that  may  exist  next  September.  Nev- 
ertheless, many  people  seem  to  think  they  are  obliged 
to  attempt  it.  A  good  many  times  you  never  have  to 
settle  it  at  all.  It  settles  itself.  It  is  like  the  tariff. 
We  have  been  trying  to  settle  it  for  a  hundred  years. 
Now  it  is  settling  itself  on  the  fields  of  Flanders.  But 
don't  cross  bridges  until  you  come  to  them. 

And,  too,  when  things  are  bad  you  ask  yourself, 
"What  is  there  intolerable  about  this  ?"  Is  not  that  a 
fine  line  of  advice  for  us  today,  considering  that  it 
comes  out  of  the  ages.  Suppose  that  someone  had  told 
you  five  years  ago  that  your  little  high  school  boy 
would  be  over  in  France,  in  a  mud-hole,  covered  with 
vermin,  rats  running  after  him,  knee  deep  in  water  and 
shot  at  with  poison  gases  and  shrapnel.  You  simply 
could  not  have  stood  the  thought.  Now,  it  is  not  intol- 
er^ble,  is  it  ? 

There  once  was  a  man  whose  motto  was  "It  might 
have  been  worse."  Once  a  friend  thought  he  would 
put  this  chap  out  of  countenance.  He  could  not  do  it 
easily,  so  he  went  to  his  fancy  for  material.  He  ac- 
cordingly pictured  to  this  friend  a  terrible  situation  in 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES      141 

which  he  had  found  him  in  a  dream.  He  had  seen  this 
hopeful  friend  in  hell.  He  was  suffering  every  possible 
torture.  There  was  not  a  single  loophole  left  for  the 
poor  fellow.  It  was  simply  frightful.  It  was  a  dream 
of  terror.  "Now,  sir,  what  do  you  say  to  that?"  asked 
the  man  triumphantly.  "0,  it  might  have  been  worse," 
was  the  reply.  "Worse!"  echoed  the  man.  "Worse! 
how  could  it  have  been  worse?"  "Easily,"  replied  the 
cheerful  one.  "It  might  have  been  true." 

That's  the  way  with  most  of  our  troubles.  They 
might  have  been  true  and  that  would  have  been  a  lot 
worse  than  it  now  is.  In  suffering  and  in  sorrow  it  is 
well  to  remember  that  we  are  living  in  the  present 
moment  and  that  each  moment  that  we  pass  brings  us 
so  much  the  nearer  to  the  breaking  of  the  day  when  the 
suffering  shall  have  been  assuaged  and  the  sorrow  have 
passed  away. 

Again,  "Don't  take  on  the  burden  of  your  whole  life 
at  any  one  time."  Under  any  conditions  ask  yourself, 
"Is  this  absolutely  intolerable  ?"  The  answer  is  always 
"No." 


ON  "CULTIVATE  THE  BIRDS" 


T  WILL  add  to  your  pleasure  in  life  if  you  learn 
a  few  specialties  of  the  out-doors.  For  in- 
stance, suppose  you  study  botany,  or  birds,  or 
trees ! 

There  is  a  woman  in  a  responsible  position 
in  a  Lewiston  Savings  Bank  of  whom  I  am 
thinking  as  an  example.  You  would  not  know  from 
her  casual  conversation  that  she  had  recently  issued  a 
book  on  the  birds  of  Lewiston-Auburn.  Her  life  is 
broadened  and  made  happier  by  her  love  of  birds,  fields 


142       JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

and  woods.  She  says:  "My  first  step  in  ornithology 
was  taken  while  studying  botany  when  I  heard  the  her- 
mit thrush."  She  will  tell  you  that  it  has  made  her  life 
quite  all  over;  given  her  abiding  interest  in  the  out- 
doors ;  there  is  a  fascination  about  it,  quite  overpower- 
ing. She  quotes  Dr.  Van  Dyke:  "I  put  my  heart  to 
school,  in  the  woods  where  veeries  sing  and  brooks  run 
clear  and  cold,  in  the  fields  where  the  wild  flowers 
spring."  I  wish  I  were  young  again.  I  would  learn  as 
much  as  I  possibly  could  about  the  birds,  the  wild  flow- 
ers and  the  trees.  Then  I  could  have  a  share  in  what 
John  Burroughs,  Henry  Van  Dyke,  Henry  D.  Thoreau 
and  Chapman  and  many  others  have  enjoyed — all  hid 
from  me,  except  in  a  general  way. 

And  so  I  envy  the  quiet  little  woman  who  can  go  out 
of  a  summer  dawn  into  the  fields  and  woods  just  to  hear 
the  bird-song.  Every  liquid  note,  that  falls  on  her 
ear,  tells  a  story  to  her.  To  me  they  are  nothing  but 
the  sweet  chorus  of  a  dawn.  To  her  each  note  tells  the 
story  of  the  little  singer.  She  sees  the  bird,  in  her 
mind's  eye.  It  is  one  of  God's  creatures  singing  to 
Him  as  sings  th3  white-throated  sparrow.  "0 !  happi- 
ness, happiness,  happiness."  If  I  could  name  the  way- 
side flowers  and  tell  the  birds  by  their  songs,  I  should 
feel  better  about  it.  And  if  I  were  a  youth,  I  would  not 
let  the  opportunity  pass.  "I  go  out  in  the  fields," 
writes  Thoreau,  "to  see  what  I  have  caught  in  the  traps 
which  I  set  for  facts."  He  looked  to  fabricate  an  epit- 
ome of  nature — we  do  not  attempt  so  much.  Profes- 
sor Stanton  of  Bates  went  a-field  on  bird-walks  because 
he  loved  the  birds  and  because  he  loved  God,  his  Father 
and  the  Maker  of  all  good  things.  Thoreau  was  of  the 
same  school.  "I  never  felt  easy  until  I  got  the  name 
of  Andropogon  (a  certain  kind  of  grass).  I  was  not 
acquainted  with  my  beautiful  neighbor,  but  since  I 
knew  it  was  the  andropogon,  I  have  felt  more  at  home 
in  my  native  fields."  The  farmer  who  could  find  him 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES       143 

a  hawk's  egg  or  give  him  a  fisher's  foot  he  would  wear 
in  his  heart  of  hearts,  whether  called  Jacob  or  not.  He 
saw  a  deep-world  under  foot.  He  believed  the  earth  to 
be  kind.  He  preached  God  in  the  living  thing — free, 
full  of  song  and  full  of  beauty.  How  many  times  have 
I  quoted  this  passage  from  Thoreau  which  seems  to  me 
to  be  perfect:  "We  are  rained  on  and  snowed  on  with 
gems.  What  a  world  we  live  in !  Where  are  the  jewel- 
ers' shops  ?  There  is  nothing  handsomer  than  a  snow- 
flake  and  a  dew-drop.  I  may  say  that  the  Maker  of  the 
world  exhausts  his  skill  with  each  snow-flake  and  dew- 
drop  that  he  sends  down.  We  think  that  the  one 
mechanically  coheres  and  that  the  other  simply  flows 
and  falls;  but,  in  truth,  they  are  the  products  of  en- 
thusiasm, the  children  of  an  ecstasy,  finished  with  the 
Artist's  utmost  skill." 

And  so,  I  am  going — all  along  in  these  talks,  so  long 
as  they  continue — every  now  and  then  to  preach  the 
same  sermon!  Cultivate  some  avocation  out-of-doors 
in  the  fields,  among  the  birds,  along  the  brooks,  within 
sound  of  the  manifold  voices  of  God !  Do  it  now.  This 
is  not  a  world  of  matter.  It  is  not  bounded  by  the 
Hohenzollerns  on  the  North,  the  Hapsburgs  on  the 
south,  the  Romanoffs  on  the  east  and  the  Wilson- 
McAdoos  on  the  west.  This  is  a  world  of  spirit,  beauty, 
love,  kindness.  The  resurrection  is  to  come  not  out  of 
the  reeking  tube  of  the  big  Bertha,  but  out  of  the 
throat  of  the  birds  and  from  the  perfume  of  the  fields. 
I  would  rather  be  like  the  little  woman  over  in  the 
Androscoggin  County  Savings  Bank  in  Lewiston — Miss 
Miller  by  name — with  what  she  knows  of  birds,  than 
be  a  ruler  with  a  throne,  built  on  the  bodies  of  those 
who  were  innocent.  For  the  road  to  happiness  and 
peace  triumphant  is  to  come  by  the  way  of  the  fields 
leading  smilingly  to  happy  homes. 


ON  "YOU  NEVER  CAN  TELL  TILL  YOU  TRY" 

NE  DAY  back  in  the  beginning  of  time,  a  man 
stood  by  the  bank  of  a  river.  He  saw  the 
fish  a-swimming.  Said  he  to  himself,  "Why 
hath  the  Lord  denied  to  man  the  right  to 
swim?"  And  he  heard  a  voice  out  of  the  sky 
saying,  "How  do  you  know  that  man  cannot 


swim  ?    You  never  can  tell  till  you  try." 

And  so  man  swam.  And  so  man  has  burrowed  in 
mines.  And  so  man  has  ventured  out  on  the  sea  in 
boats.  And  so  man  has  made  iron  swim  on  the  seas  in 
ships.  And  so  he  has  gone  down  under  the  sea  in  sub- 
marines. And  so  he  has  beaten  the  birds,  flying  faster 
than  the  eagles. 

It  is  not  so  much  of  the  result  as  of  the  impulse, 
that  I  would  speak.  It  is  of  smaller  importance  that 
man  flies  against  the  sun,  than  that  he  should  believe 
that  nothing  is  impossible  until  proven  such.  It  is  more 
to  the  purpose  that  we  try  than  that  we  succeed.  Fail- 
ure may  fortify  us.  We  shall  learn  by  trying.  But  if 
we  never  try,  we  surely  shall  never  succeed  and  shall 
never  have  an  average  of  accomplishment. 

Thanks  be  to  the  Lord!  The  world  has  had  cer- 
tain men  who  have  never  believed  in  the  impossible. 
They  saw  what  the  world  needed  and  set  about  to  sup- 
ply the  need.  Experience — which  is  very  blind  as  a 
rule — said :  "It  never  has  been  done.  There  is  a  law  of 
physics  that  makes  it  impossible.  You  will  be  wasting 
your  time."  But  these  men  said,  "  I  am  not  so  sure. 
You  never  can  tell  till  you  try."  It  was  proven  in- 
contestably  that  men  could  never  conquer  the  air. 
The  specific  gravity  of  solids  was  such  and  such  as  com- 
pared with  air!  The  lifting  power  of  air-planes  was 
such  and  such!  The  Idea!  Nonsense!  It  could  not 
be  done.  I  could  find  you  many  absolute — and  obsolete 
— proofs  that  machines  never  could  be  made  that  would 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES       145 

fly.  But  Prof.  Langley  and  Wright  Brothers  and  a 
few  others  said,  "You  never  can  tell  till  you  try." 
And  now  we  dip  and  dive  in  the  ether  like  the  hawk  and 
swallow. 

If  you  want  to  read  a  book  that  will  put  gumption 
into  you  in  respect  to  trying  to  do  things  that  scientists 
and  wise  me  i  say  are  impossible,  read  Samuel  Smiles' 
"Life  of  George  Stephenson."  Here  was  an  uneducated 
man.  He  could  not  read  until  he  was  mature.  He 
mended  shoes  and  repaired  clocks  and  tended  the 
engine  at  the  pit-mouth  in  the  collieries  in  Northum- 
berland. The  coals  were  hauled  on  wooden  or  iron 
rails  by  horses.  Stephenson  believed  that  they  could 
be  hauled  by  what  we  now  call  the  locomotive.  The 
scientists  said  it  was  impossible.  The  capitalists  said 
it  was  impossible.  But  Geordie  Stephenson  said,  "You 
never  can  tell  till  you  try."  Read  the  story  of  that 
life.  Read  how  he  took  up  the  impossibles  and  solved 
them.  Read  how  this  unlearned  man  actually  invented 
the  arts  of  locomotive-building,  of  railroad  construc- 
tion ;  how  he  flung  the  iron  rails  over  morasses ;  how  he 
pierced  mountains  in  deep  tunnels ;  how  he  constructed 
the  locomotive  against  parliament  and  the  mobs  of 
English  farmers  protesting  that  it  would  blast  the 
crops  and  spread  famine  thru  the  land.  It  will  put  the 
pep  into  you.  It  will  make  you  believe — if  nothing  else 
will  make  you. 

How  can  any  man  today  dare  say  that  anything  in 
the  physical  world  is  impossible?  Let  him  consider 
the  Marconi  wireless,  the  phonograph,  the  Atlantic 
cable,  the  newspaper-press,  the  aeroplane,  the  subma- 
rine, the  mariner's  compass!  With  the  mysterious 
power  of  radium  in  the  offing,  who  shall  say  that  there 
will  not  be  found  new  fields  of  wonder  and  achievement 
that  today  we  do  not  glimpse,  much  less  explore?  We 
are  like  children  in  a  palace  of  illusions!  What  we 
think  are  real  are  but  appearances,  what  we  think  are 


146       JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

fixed  laws,  may  be  nothing  of  the  sort.  If  thirty  years 
ago  a  person  had  told  you  that  you  would  see  the  day 
when  you  could  photograph  a  man's  liver  thru  his  body, 
without  taking  the  said  liver  out  and  hanging  it  on  a 
nail,  you  would  have  said  "go  to."  Surest  thing  that 
ever  was — "you  never  can  tell  till  you  try." 

So  if  I  were  a  boy,  and  looked  out  on  the  world  and 
saw  things  that  the  world  needed — either  as  Edison,  or 
as  Joan  of  Arc,  or  as  Billy  Sunday,  or  as  Michelangelo, 
or  as  Gutenberg  or  any  other  deliverer  or  helper 
of  the  race,  I  never  would  say,  "It  can't  be  done." 
Rather  should  I  say,  "You  never  can  tell  till  you  try 
and  I  am  going  to  TRY."  And  it  is  this  spirit  that  is 
fortifying  the  world  today.  We  are  doing  things  today 
that  we  never  knew  we  could  do  until  we  tried — and 
all  of  them  bringing  mankind  to  higher  levels  thru 
effort  that  purifies  and  uplifts. 


ON  "THAT'S  THE  BOY  OF  IT" 

E  WERE  reading  this  from  our  old  philoso- 
pher: "Your  time  is  almost  over,  therefore, 
live  as  though  you  were  on  a  mountain. 
Never  run  into  a  hole  or  shun  company." 

And  then  the  man  at  the  other  desk  in  the 
office    said,    "That  old   Roman  never   went 
camping  out,  did  he?" 

This  accords  with  what  is  happening  in  my  back- 
yard. The  boys  across  the  way  came  over  the  other 
night  and  asked,  "Please  may  we  put  up  our  tent  in 
your  back  yard  ?  We  will  be  quiet  and  won't  make  no 
noise  nor  nothin'." 

"Go  on,"  says  I.  "May  you  be  happier  than  I  ever 
was,  living  in  a  tent".  And  the  tent  is  up  and  I  can 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES       147 

hear  mysterious  sounds  from  it  and  see  boys  crawling 
out  of  it  with  wooden  bowie-knives  in  their  teeth  and 
with  red  paint  on  their  faces. 

[There  comes  a  time  in  every  boy's  life  when  he 
wants  to  live  in  a  tent.  Nobody  knows  what  stirring 
of  nomadic  blood  leads  them  to  this  desire.  It  prob- 
ably dates  back  to  pre-historic  ages  when  our  forebears 
lived  in  tents.  It  is  the  call  of  the  wild  in  the  boy. 
But  they  are  sure  to  have  it  and  if  repressed,  it  does 
harm.  If  a  boy  in  my  neighborhood  wants  to  tent  out 
and  will  agree  to  do  it  near  home,  he  has  my  consent. 
Don't  bother  him.  Let  him  have  his  fill.  He  will  en- 
joy home  the  better,  afterward. 

You  remember,  perhaps,  when  you  went  camping 
out  with  some  other  boy.  You  talked  about  it  for  a 
month,  yea,  a  year.  You  got  a  tent  and  worked  like  a 
little  Injun  to  get  money  to  have  your  belongings 
hauled  to  some  convenient  camping  ground  and  you 
were  dumped  down  with  the  world  before  you.  A  tent 
averages  to  be  the  hottest  place  in  mid-day  and  the 
coldest  place  at  midnight  with  two  exceptions — hell 
and  the  north-pole.  And  it  always  rains.  And  some- 
one always  tells  the  boys  to  build  a  trench  around  the 
camp  and  they  do  and  the  trench  fills  up  and  backs  up 
into  camp  and  floats  the  bedding,  and  the  green  snakes 
crawl  in  and  the  earwigs  and  the  ants  want  to  go  camp- 
ing out  and  the  noises  are  something  awful  nights. 
Every  lion  and  tiger  in  the  State  of  Maine  comes  prowl- 
ing around  and  the  rains  are  simply  bitter.  And  the 
beans  sour — nice  beans  that  you  were  going  to  fall  back 
on  when  game  got  scarce — and  your  matches  get  wet 
and  you  can't  seem  to  get  along  without  milk  and  cream 
and  you  are  somewhat  homesick.  And  the  mosquitoes 
are  thick  and  you  want  to  go  home  and  can't,  because 
you  were  going  to  stay  a  week  anyway.  And  you  get  a 
cold  in  your  head  and  your  feet  are  wet  and  then  the 
man,  on  whose  land  you  are  camping,  comes  down  and 


148       JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

asks  you  who  in  thunder  ever  gave  you  permission  to 
camp  on  his  land,  and  asks  you  if  that  is  you  who  has 
been  shooting  a  pistol  at  his  cows,  and  tells  you  his 
charge  is  ten  dollars  for  camping  privileges  anyway, 
and  to  fork  over,  and  you  have  only  eighty  cents  be- 
tween you. 

And  your  chum  proves  to  have  a  bad  temper  and 
yours  is  no  better,  and  you  sit  there  crying  into  the  wet 
pillow  and  you  hear  a  voice  outside  and  it  sounds  like 
Dad's,  and  he  is  saying,  "Here  they  are,  Joe ;"  and  it  IS 
Dad  and  your  chum's  Dad  come  over  to  see  how  the 
bold  hunters  are  getting  along. 

"Well,  boys,"  says  Dad,  "isn't  this  the  fine  place! 
Just  getting  to  feel  like  home,  I  suppose?  Fixed  up 
nice  and  cosy,  eh !  Well !  Well !  This  is  great  isn't 
it,  Joe  ?"  And  they  stay  around  a  while  and  talk  about 
coming  over  again  next  week  to  see  you.  And  you  feel 
like  death  until  Dad  says,  "Of  course,  if  you  rather 
come  home  now  and  come  over  again  and  have  another 
week  some  other  time,  say  the  word  and  we'll  tote  yer 
home." 

And  two  weak  little  voices  echo,  "I  guess  that  would 
be  fine  and  dandy  all  right."  And  two  happy  boys 
bundle  into  Dad's  arms  and  sleep  all  the  way  home. 
And  that's  the  Boy  of  it. 


ON    'TRUNDLE  BEDS" 

UR  OLD  friend,  E.  P.  Ricker,  of  Poland  Spring, 
was  in  this  office  a  few  days  ago,  talking 
about  the  days  when  they  charged  from  $2.50 
to  $3.50  a  week  for  board  at  the  Mansion 
House  at  Poland  Spring,  and  he  said  that  per- 
haps it  was  enough,  for  the  roof  leaked  and 
they  had  only  a  few  rooms  and  a  good  many  in  a  room. 
That  was  many,  many  years  ago,  when  the  first  adver- 
tisement of  Poland  Water  appeared  in  the  Brunswick 
Telegraph,  and  the  first  circular  was  issued  on  Poland 
Water. 

"I  remember,"  said  Mr.  Ricker,  "that  I  was  sleeping 
on  a  trundle  bed,  and — " 

Here  is  the  place  to  stop  quotation  and  ask  a  few 
questions.  How  many  of  our  readers  ever  saw  a 
trundle  bed?  How  many  know  what  a  trundle  bed  is 
and  why  it  got  its  name? 

I  can  remember  how  a  trundle  bed  looked,  but  I 
never  slept  in  one  and  we  never  had  one  in  the  house, 
altho  there  was  one  at  grandmother's  house.  Yet  I  sup- 
pose a  good  many  of  our  readers  will  remember  them 
and  many  have  slept  in  them.  They  were  little,  low  bed- 
steads for  children,  and  of  tremendous  economy.  They 
were  called  "trundle"  because  they  could  be  trundled 
about  the  room  and  because  it  was  the  custom  to  slip 
them  under  the  tall  four-posters  during  the  day-time 
so  as  to  be  out  of  the  way.  Those  were  the  days  when 
a  sleeping- room  was  not  exclusive.  Few  rooms,  in 
spite  of  all  of  the  land  outdoors  on  which  to  build,  was 
the  custom !  People  slept  in  innocence  and  purity,  sev- 
eral in  a  room.  So  when  night  came,  out  came  the 
trundle  bed  from  its  nice,  sanitary  retreat  under  the 
family  bedstead  and  all  the  household  turned  in,  hig- 
gledy-piggledy ! 


150       JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

The  old-fashioned  bed  was  a  terrible  thing — come 
to  think  of  it.  It  is  a  wonder  how  they  ever  lived — our 
grandfathers  and  grandmothers — to  such  ripe  old  age 
without  "influenza"  and  the  grip,  the  pip  and  the  tee- 
bees.  The  old-fashioned  four-poster  was  as  snug  as  a 
linen-closet  in  an  August  afternoon  on  the  sunny  side 
of  a  house  with  the  thermometer  at  a  hundred  and  ten. 
On  going  to  bed  in  winter  they  used  to  warm  up  a  bed- 
pan, shut  the  windows,  wind  the  clock,  call  in  the  cat, 
lock  the  shed  door,  put  a  log  on  the  fire,  tuck  in  the 
children,  put  on  a  flannel  night-cap,  get  out  the  bed- 
steps,  draw  the  bed-curtains,  climb  to  the  level  of  the 
bed,  enter  the  sanctuary,  sink  about  eleven  feet  into  a 
feather  bed  and,  pulling  the  curtains  close  about  them, 
shut  out  any  vagrant  air  and  sink  into  pleasant  dreams 
— no  doubt.  Night-air  was  accounted  noxious,  on  ac- 
count of  the  carbonic  acid  gas  let  out  by  vegetation. 
We  used  to  hear  so  much  about  plants  reversing  the 
order  of  their  exhalations  after  dark,  that  we  used  to  be 
afraid  of  being  caught  out  after  sun-down  for  fear  of 
being  poisoned.  They  were  wary  folk — those  old- 
timers. 

But  they  survived  it  and  so  did  the  boys,  sleeping  in 
the  trundle-beds,  about  four  inches  from  the  floor, 
where  drafts  ran  around  and  the  mice  frolicked.  To 
see  three  large,  awkward  boys,  anywhere  from  six  feet 
to  seven  feet  long,  inhabiting  one  trundle  bed  while  pa, 
marm  and  two  or  three  children  inhabited  the  four- 
poster,  was  to  see  economy  of  space  combined  with 
dreamless  sleep.  You  could  hear  those  boys  growing 
thru  the  night. 

Trundle  beds  have  gone,  along  with  the  old-fash- 
ioned side-board  cradle  with  its  wooden  rockers,  rat- 
tling a  lullaby  along  the  yellow-painted  kitchen  floor — 
mother's  toe  agitating  it  as  she  knit  the  socks  or  spun 
the  yarn  with  the  flying  wheel.  How  many  people  have 
seen  a  grandmother  spinning  in  the  twilight  of  the 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES       151 

evening  by  the  firelight  in  an  old-fashioned  kitchen? 
I  used  to  see  a  grandmother  serenely  doing  this  and 
smoking  her  pipe  at  the  same  time,  innocently  and 
sweetly — sanctifying  tobacco  in  the  purity  of  her  life 
and  the  religion  of  her  deep  and  abiding  Faith.  And 
how  many  have  agitated  the  churn — the  old  dasher 
churn,  when  the  butter  refused  to  come;  when  good 
fishing  waited  outside  with  allurement  for  the  im- 
patient boy ! 

Times  have  changed  and  customs,  also!  Other 
things  have  gone  with  the  trundle  bed — some  good, 
some  bad.  But  what  abideth  is  memory  of  the  dearly 
beloved.  We  sat  with  them  in  the  twilight,  often,  in 
blessedness  of  love.  And  angels'  wings  brushed  our 
faces,  tho  we  knew  it  not. 


ON  "PROGRESS  AND  WONDER" 

LL  THE  WHILE  that  man  fights  man,  in  the 
world-struggle,  a  similar  drama  is  going  on 
in  all  animal  life.  Everywhere  we  see  the 
unfolding  of  it,  struggle  between  mates, 
struggle  between  rivals,  and  on  the  other 
hand  we  see  love  and  growth. 
It  makes  us  wonder  if  we  even  faintly  see  the  light 
in  this  world  of  wonder.  If  we  should  talk  over  what 
we  ourselves  have  observed  about  animal  behavior  we 
would  come  to  a  common-ground  of  agreement  that 
animals  live  on  a  scale  of  intelligent  deportment  that 
is,  to  say  the  least,  a  close  resemblance  to  our  own,  and 
from  it  should  take  courage  for  the  future. 

Take  the  wonderful  thing  known  as  migration  of 
birds.  I  have  been  reading  in  one  of  Prof.  J.  A. 
Thompson's  lectures  about  the  marvels  of  bird  migra- 


152       JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

tion.  They  almost  pass  belief — how  they  make  their 
long  journeys  at  night  with  unabating  speed ;  how  they 
cross  pathless  seas ;  how  they  return  to  the  very  garden 
in  which  they  nested  the  year  before ;  how  the  young 
birds  that  never  migrated  before,  set  off  alone  and  wait 
not  for  those  who  have  gone  before,  but  "change  their 
season  in  a  night  and  wail  their  way  from  cloud  to 
cloud  down  the  long  wind." 

Or  take,  as  this  writer  says,  as  another  instance,  the 
life  history  of  the  common  European  eel.  It  begins 
life  below  the  500  fathom  line  on  the  floor  of  the  deep 
sea — in  a  dark,  cold,  calm,  silent,  plantless  world.  It 
passes  to  the  surface  as  a  flattened  larva,  quite  trans- 
parent, and  it  lives  in  the  open  sea  for  over  a  year,  not 
eating  anything  and  growing  rather  smaller  as  it 
grows  older.  It  becomes  a  young  eel  or  elver,  as  it  is 
called,  which  makes  for  the  shore  and  journeys  up  the 
rivers.  In  spring  or  early  summer,  legions  of  these 
elvers  pass  up  stream,  obedient  to  their  instinct  to  go 
right  ahead  as  long  as  the  light  lasts.  Before  reaching 
such  rivers  as  flow  into  the  Eastern  Baltic,  the  young 
eels  have  had  a  journey  of  fully  3,000  miles ;  for  all  of 
the  eels  of  Northern  Europe  seem  to  have  had  their 
cradle  in  the  Atlantic  west  of  the  Faroes,  the  Hebrides, 
Ireland,  and  Spain,  where  the  continental  plateau 
shelves  deeply  down  to  the  great,  silent  depths.  As 
the  elvers  pass  up  the  streams,  there  is  a  separation  of 
the  sexes.  The  females  go  ahead  farther  up  the 
streams;  the  males  lag  behind.  Then  follows  a  long 
period  of  growth  in  slow-flowing  reaches  of  ponds  and 
rivers.  After  some  years  of  this  new  life,  they  all 
make  the  return  journey  to  the  sea  and  as  far  as  is 
known,  the  individual-life  ends  in  giving  origin  to  new 
lives.  There  is  never  any  breeding  in  fresh  water; 
there  seems  to  be  no  return  for  any  eel  from  the  deep 
sea — nothing  but  the  succession  of  the  coming  elver 
and  the  departing  eel,  his  life  finished. 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES       153 

And  all  this  goes  on  in  spite  of  man  and  his  petty 
wars.  The  impulse  that  sends  the  bird  to  the  south 
and  back  again  in  summer  to  the  north;  the  impulse 
that  controls  the  migration  of  the  European  eel  and  all 
similar  impulses  are  apparently  sempiternal.  We  have 
as  yet  not  the  smallest  conception  of  the  ruling  im- 
pulses of  the  world.  We  are  all  too  apt  to  consider 
things  solely  from  the  standpoint  of  Man,  and  he  is  only 
a  very  small  part  of  creation  and  by  no  means  the  most 
wonderful.  The  body  of  an  ant  is  many  times  more 
visibly  intricate  than  a  steam-engine.  Its  brain,  as 
Darwin  said,  is  perhaps  the  most  marvelous  speck  of 
matter  in  the  universe.  Scientists  say  that  in  a  tiny 
organism  no  larger  than  the  second  hand  of  a  watch 
there  is  a  molecular  intricacy  that  might  be  repre- 
sented by  an  Atlantic  liner  packed  with  such  watches. 

Now — bear  this  in  mind  as  the  thought  of  this  Talk. 
The  word  of  all  nature  is  Progress.  There  has  never 
been  an  instance  yet  of  retrogression  in  the  system. 
Individuals  and  some  types  come  and  go — but  the 
world  plan  is  Progress.  We  do  not  know;  cannot  un- 
derstand as  yet  what  is  the  secret  of  Life,  what  is  its 
destiny,  but  the  person  who  sees  the  birds  come  and  go, 
who  knows  of  such  mysterious  influences  as  those 
which  control  the  elver  in  his  3,000  mile  journey  to  a 
place  unseen  hitherto,  but  unerringly  found,  cannot 
doubt  that  Man  will  find  with  the  same  unerring 
course,  the  Haven — which  is  a  Heaven,  somewhere. 
In  the  meantime  let  us  wonder  and  wonder — for  it  is 
the  spur  to  knowledge  and  the  staff  of  faith. 


ON  "BEING  THE  WHOLE  THING" 

RE  you  one  of  those  business  men  who  think 
that  nobody  else  can  do  your  work;  that  the 
business  would  stop  if  you  went  away  for  a 
few  days?  If  so,  mend  your  ways.  If  you 
are  running  the  business  that  way,  it  is  time 
for  you  to  reorganize.  No  business  should 
be  at  the  mercy  of  one  man. 

Here  is  a  true  story.  When  the  United  States 
Steel  business  was  re-organized  and  every  one  in  Pitts- 
burgh became  a  millionaire  over  night,  by  the  forma- 
tion of  the  gigantic  United  States  Steel  corporation,  it 
happened  that  there  was  a  man  in  the  open-hearth 
steel  plant  who  had  been  there  many  years  and  who 
was  a  faithful  and  efficient  boss  of  his  expert  and 
highly  intricate  work. 

In  the  sudden  down-pour  of  riches,  the  happy  offi- 
cials thought  of  this  man,  and,  seeking  to  reward  him 
for  his  share  in  the  success,  they  called  him  into  the 
office,  gave  him  a  lot  of  money  and  told  him  that  he 
had  earned  a  vacation.  "Go  abroad  a  year,"  said  they, 
"Your  pay  will  go  on  as  before  on  a  big  advance.  Look 
over  everything  in  steel-construction  and  steel-manu- 
facture. Have  a  good  time.  Rest  up  and  enjoy  your- 
self." 

The  man  went  away  and  stayed  six  months.  He  had 
always  been  a  worker;  never  a  loafer.  He  had  been  a 
powerful,  dominant  man  who  attended  strictly  to  busi- 
ness every  day  of  the  year,  no  vacations.  He  became 
restless,  in  Europe ;  he  could  stand  it  no  longer ;  he  set 
sail  for  home  and  one  day  stepped  into  the  main-office 
of  the  U.  S.  Steel  Co.  and  said:  "How's  things  going?" 
The  manager  looked  up  and  said,  "Rotten.  Nobody 
here  knowi  how  to  make  open-hearth  steel  as  it  should 
be  made.  We  have  lost  thousands  and  thousands  of 
dollars  by  your  absence." 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES       155 

"Gimme  my  overalls!"  shouted  the  happy  man, 
"I'm  going  back  to  work  in  three  minutes." 

"No,  you  are  not,"  said  the  manager.  "You  are 
going  back  to  Europe  and  stay  there  for  the  rest  of 
your  vacation.  No  one  man  is  ever  again  going  to  put 
the  U.  S.  Steel  Co.  in  the  hole  that  you  have  left  it  in. 
No  man  ought  to  run  a  department  so  that  his  assistant 
can't  run  it  as  well  as  he  did.  The  measure  of  a  man's 
efficiency  in  a  department  is  results,  both  when  he  is 
there  and  when  he  is  not.  If  his  assistants  can  do  the 
work  better  than  he  can,  it  goes  to  his  credit ;  he  has 
picked  the  men ;  he  has  taught  them.  We  want  no  seg- 
regation of  expertness  in  any  one  individual.  In  short, 
the  excellence  of  a  manager,  is  the  degree  to  which  he 
can  disappear  for  brief  seasons  and  return  to  find  it 
running  smoothly.  We  do  not  want  the  U.  S.  Steel  Co. 
to  shut  down  because,  some  bad  day,  you  overeat  and 
die." 

This  does  not  mean  that  business-men  are  not  to 
attend  to  business.  But  what  it  does  mean  is  that 
their  efforts  at  running  business  must  be  directed  in 
large  affairs  to  man-selection  and  the  proper  apportion- 
ing of  responsibility  upon  them.  Hold  them  for  re- 
sults. Stand  like  Foch  at  the  guidance  and  depend  on 
men  who  shall  have  every  opportunity  to  learn;  on 
them  shall  be,  under  your  larger  guidance,  the  issue  of 
success. 

And  bear  this  in  mind,  you  will  lose  your  punch  if 
you  permit  yourself  to  go  stale.  To  this  end,  frequent 
change,  occasional  variation  of  work,  average  number 
of  vacations — all  these  are  essential.  A  day  or  two  in 
the  open,  out  where  bigger  things  than  have  ever  devel- 
oped in  your  factory  are  going  on — out  by  the  sea,  or 
on  the  mountain  top — all  of  these  are  required.  Put 
the  punch  into  yourself  and  into  your  assistants  by  con- 
sideration of  the  human  need  for  rest  and  recreation. 
And  don't  forget  that  you  are  not — or  should  not  be 


156       JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

indispensable  to  the  degree  that  the  business  will  suf- 
fer if  you  leave  your  desk  for  a  few  weeks  in  summer. 
Forget  it.  You  are  not  the  whole  business  unless  the 
business  can  do  very  nicely  in  your  absence.  The 
system  should  be  bigger  than  the  individual. 


ON  "BEAUTY  OF  THE  WORLD" 

E  have  talked  together — if  perchance  I  have 
any  readers — about  beauty,  feeling  as  I  do, 
that  it  is  deeper  than  the  surface  and  a 
part  of  a  divine  plan.  For  Beauty,  as  I  take 
it,  is  a  foreshadowing  on  earth  of  the  ulti- 
mate development  of  mankind  after  death,  an 
earthly  beatitude,  expressed  in  form. 

So  Beauty  is  no  mere  accident  of  form  and  habit. 
It  is  as  a  phrase  in  the  infinite  harmonies,  a  movement 
in  the  song  of  the  heavenly  chorus,  heard  a  little  in 
advance.  It  is  brother  to  Truth  and  Justice,  it  is  per- 
fection, here  and  there,  displayed.  It  is  an  echo  of  the 
rhythm  that  moves  in  and  thru  all  creation.  The  omni- 
presence of  beauty  in  all  finished  and  normal  life,  must 
have  some  meaning.  Even  if  it  signify  nothing  more 
than  that  it  arouses  something  within  us  that  responds 
pleasurably  to  nature — that  is  worth  while.  "Thou 
hast  ordered  all  things  in  measure  and  number  and 
weight !  Thou  hast  made  all  things  beautiful,  in  their 
season." 

The  whole  world  is  beautiful.  Its  very  beauty 
proves  that  it  could  not  have  come  by  chance.  From 
the  crystal  to  the  flower,  there  is  plan  and  order.  The 
sea  beating  against  the  shores;  the  wide  stretches  of 
the  fields;  the  azure  of  the  skies;  the  rugged  storm 
clouds,  built  up  against  an  evening  sky;  the  gold  of  a 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES       157 

perfect  sunset ;  the  beauty  of  a  dawning  day ;  the  stars 
that  sweep  overhead  at  night;  the  moon,  on  summer 
seas ;  the  mountains  thrown  against  a  dazzling  sky ;  the 
silver  tips  of  peaks  remote,  diamond-studded;  the 
sweep  of  storm  thru  city  streets  with  eaves  groaning 
and  night  winds  sobbing;  the  brooks  that  sing  along 
the  forest  paths ;  the  birds  in  brilliant  colors — what  is 
all  this  prodigal  display  of  perfect  loveliness,  but  the 
work  of  some  Divine  influence  making  this  the  abode  of 
loveliness,  as  the  vestibule  to  glories  yet  to  be? 

And  there  is  no  common  thing  that  hath  not  its 
loveliness.  We  brush  aside  the  common  weeds,  seen 
so  often  that  we  do  not  notice  them  and  yet,  if 
we  take  time  some  day,  when  we  are  sitting  by 
some  wayside  spring,  to  examine  them,  we  shall  find 
them  beautiful,  intricate,  full  of  individuality.  Their 
parts  are  perfectly  correlated  and  well  adapted  to  their 
surroundings.  They  have  means  of  protection  and  of 
development.  They  are  of  a  race  perhaps  older  than 
our  own.  We  see  the  bee  come  to  them  and  find  his 
sweet — the  beautiful,  golden  bee  adorned  in  colors  that 
do  not  fade.  If  we  enter  into  the  laboratory  of  the 
weed,  we  find  beauties  of  plan,  mysteries  of  evolution 
that  fill  us  with  awe.  It  is  true,  as  the  poet  says, 
"Little  flower!  If  I  could  but  understand  what  you 
are,  root  and  all,  and  all  in  all,  I  should  know  what  God 
and  Man  is." 

I  do  not  want  this  loveliness  to  escape  notice  of 
those  who  read  casually  the  newspaper  as  it  comes  and 
goes.  Some  things  are  abiding.  This  earth  is  not  all 
of  it.  Everything  is  wonderful  if  you  will  but  observe. 
"I  believe  that  a  leaf  of  grass  is  no  less  than  the  jour- 
ney-work of  the  stars,"  says  Walt  Whitman,  "and  the 
pismire  is  equally  perfect;  and  the  grain  of  sand  and 
the  egg  of  the  wren ;  and  a  tree-toad  is  a  chef-d'oeuvre 
of  the  highest ;  and  the  running  blackberry  would  adorn 
the  parlours  of  heaven ;  and  the  narrowest  hinge  on  my 


158       JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

hand  puts  to  scorn  all  machinery ;  and  the  cow  munch- 
ing with  depressed  head  surpasses  any  statue ;  and  the 
mouse  is  a  miracle  enough  to  stagger  sextillions  of 
infidels." 


ON  "PASTURES" 

ROWN,  gray,  green  or  even  white  with  winter 
snow,  what  is  lovelier  than  a  Maine  pasture, 
with  a  knoll  on  it ! 

And  we  prefer  them,  do  we  not,  with  a 
pine-tree  on  that  knoll,  whispering  things 
about  strange  places  with  the  winds  that 
have  been  everywhere  and  seen  everything.  We  like 
them  also  that  give  glimpses  of  casual  pond  or  lake  so 
that  we  can  lie  with  our  head  on  a  stone,  as  Jacob  did  at 
Bethel,  and  see  visions,  in  the  sky  and  on  the  shining 
.waters. 

A  Maine  pasture  must — simply  must — be  entered 
by  a  gate  with  bars  that  let  down  and  it  should  have 
low  juniper,  granite  bowlders,  occasional  velvety 
patches,  a  sand-bank,  and  a  familiar  path  that  leads  to 
the  heights.  If  it  be  an  "institutional"  pasture,  so  to 
speak,  it  may  have  a  picnic  grove  in  it.  I  have  such  a 
one  in  mind,  called  "Bibber's  Woods,"  where  a  whole 
town  went  on  hot  afternoons  in  summer  and  looked  far 
down  into  a  valley  in  which  a  stream  wound  along  like 
a  silver  ribbon.  The  cows  came  up  and  joined  us  at 
sunset  and  nobody  ever  left  the  bars  down.  I  suppose 
that  the  portable  saw  mill  has  murdered  these  living 
trees  before  this. 

I  like  a  pasture  in  the  spring,  when  ninety-nine  per 
cent  of  the  snow  is  gone ;  when  the  earth  is  quite  warm 
and  when  the  mayflower  is  to  be  found.  It  takes  the 
expert  to  find  the  mayflower  "down  underneath," 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES       159 

always  in  certain  definite  spots,  remembered  of  last 
year,  among  long  grasses  in  the  most  hidden  places, 
known  only  to  you.  They  are  old  friends.  But  one 
does  not  go  mayflowering  if  memories  are  too  potent 
and  come  with  tears — curly-headed,  fairy-like  little 
girl,  running  about  here  and  there,  your  companion  and 
pal — now  alas,  too  staid  and  sophisticated  at  seventeen 
to  go  mayflowering  with  dad.  Ah!  The  visions  of 
children  with  flowing  hair,  that  people  every  pasture, 
even  those  by  the  home  fireside. 

We  love  the  pasture  for  its  silences.  The  swallows 
fly  low  over  the  pasture  knolls,  the  bluebird  sings  upon 
the  fence-rail  and  the  drowsy  tinkling  of  the  cow-bells 
lulls  us  to  dreams.  One  can  stretch  out  here  in  the 
sunshine  as  on  his  mother's  bosom.  The  sunlight,  thru 
ash  and  poplar,  filters  in  over  our  pastures  of  New  Eng- 
land as  nowhere  else.  Mere  fields  are  stubble ;  forests 
are  obscure  and  mystic.  The  presence  of  the  Lord  is  in 
the  deep  woods ;  but  out  here  the  angels  of  peace  and 
the  good  fairies  seem  to  play,  and  they  draw  light  out 
of  the  west  and  run  with  it  helter-skelter  over  the 
knolls  and  into  the  valleys.  One  can  hardly  despair  in 
a  pasture,  whatever  his  memories.  It  is  too  bright  and 
open  for  despair. 

I  like  the  pastures  even  in  winter.  The  snow  blows 
over  them  and  lays  them  as  with  a  white  table-cloth. 
It  lies  in  shelving  ridges,  with  edges  overhanging  and 
overlapped  like  mother  of  pearl  in  the  deep  sea  shell. 
The  pines  sing  louder  in  winter.  There  are  open  tracks 
of  the  rabbit  or  fox.  The  snow  declines  to  build 
against  the  trunks  of  certain  trees,  for  what  reason  I 
do  not  know,  and  often  there  are  bare  and  dry  spots 
where  you  may  sit  at  your  hazard  and  look  abroad. 
There  will  be  a  thousand  things  to  see,  from  grass 
culms  to  the  lichens,  glistening  in  the  moist  winter 
days.  Where  the  sun  beats  down  you  can  almost  see 
spring  stirring — yea,  the  infinity  of  springs. 


160       JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

Maine  pastures  are  incomparably  lovely  but  mostly 
unappreciated.  We  scarcely  know  how  rare  they  are. 
How  one  hungers  after  them,  when  away  from  them. 
Think  of  the  weary  sage-brush  or  the  dull,  dreary 
stretches  of  the  sea  of  corn-fields  of  the  West.  By  the 
side  of  these  the  Maine  pasture  is  as  elysium.  And 
such  sunsets  1  From  a  Maine  pasture  they  pick  up  new 
glories.  The  dull  earth  lends  itself  to  emphasis  of 
jades  and  golds,  and  especially  the  upper  end  of  the 
spectrum,  carmines  and  crimsons.  As  a  proscenium, 
even  the  sea  is  trivial  and  the  mountain-top  is  melo- 
drama as  compared  with  the  perfect  setting  of  the 
simple  pastoral  to  the  watcher  of  the  skies,  with  pil- 
lowed head  upon  the  knoll  beneath  the  whispering  pine 
as  the  sun  sinks  slowly  down  in  glory ! 

No  wonder  the  psalmist  sang  of  them — the  pas- 
tures of  Heaven.  "He  maketh  me  to  lie  down  in  green 
pastures ;  he  leadeth  me  beside  the  still  waters ;  he  re- 
storeth  my  soul." 


ON  "THINKING  TWICE" 

NEVER  did  a  thing  in  a  hurry  that  I  did  not 
regret  it.  Almost  everyone  has  had  the  same 
experience  and,  by  being  in  a  hurry,  does  not 
mean  having  a  quickstep,  about  things — it  is 
the  mind  that  you  must  not  hurry!  Hurry 
your  feet,  all  you  like ;  so  long  as  feet  or 
hands  do  not  outrun  the  operations  of  your  brains.  If 
they  do,  look  out.  You  are  hurrying  and  must  take 
your  chances  of  accident. 

I  am  tending  a  furnace.  It  is  not  a  job  that  I  went 
into  the  primaries  to  get.  I  did  not  go  about  telling 
what  an  all-fired  good  furnace-tender  I  was  and  am.*  I 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES       161 

fell  into  the  office  by  a  fancied  fitness  for  it  on  the  part 
of  my  wife.  She  decided  that  here  was  an  office  for 
which  I  was  just  about  suited  and  she  elected  me  by  a 
majority  of  one  vote,  my  vote  "contrary-minded"  not 
counting. 

The  other  night,  I  decided  that  the  water  was  low 
in  the  boiler  and  that  I  would  fill  it.  This  steam-plant 
is  a  new  one  to  me.  We  had  not  been  properly  intro- 
duced. I  found  the  right  wheel  to  turn  and  turned  it 
and  went  about  my  other  business  of  piling  in  the  coal 
and  then  I  took  out  a  lead  pencil  and  sat  on  a  barrel 
and  began  to  write  a  little  thing  that  came  into  my 
noddle,  and  then  I  went  out  and  got  an  ash-barrel,  and 
then  I  went  up-stairs  and  forgot  all  about  the  wheel 
that  I  had  turned  and  all  about  the  water  that  was  run- 
ning into  the  boiler,  by  a  one-inch  pipe. 

You  see  I  have  not  hurried,  up  to  this  point.  To  be 
sure,  I  worked  a  little  ahead  of  my  brain,  but  then  I 
was  not  hurrying.  My  brain  simply  was  failing  to 
register.  It  needed  a  new  needle  or  a  fresh  record  or 
the  crank  needed  to  be  wound  up.  Nobody's  fault,  as 
yet. 

I  ate  my  supper  and  dawdled.  I  went  down  to  the 
public  library  and  got  a  couple  of  books  on  Freedom  of 
the  Seas — forgetting  the  freedom  of  the  water  running 
all  of  the  while  into  my  boiler — I  should  say,  rather, 
into  the  boiler  up  to  the  house,  for,  if  it  had  been  my 
very  own  boiler,  I  should  have  noticed  it.  I  went  home 
and  sat  down  by  the  radiator.  Then  I  heard  a  sound ! 
A  sizzling.  Then!  Oh,  then,  I  began  to  hurry. 

Now,  if  I  had  not  hurried;  if  I  had  stopped  and 
mopped  my  brow  and  recited  a  few  verses  of  Omar ;  and 
drawn  up  a  definite  plan  of  procedure  in  case  of  flood, 
it  would  have  been  all  right.  But  as  a  matter  of  fact,  I 
sky-hooted  for  the  cellar  as  tho  a  yaller  dog  (one  of  Al 
Sweet's) — had  had  me  in  a  place  where  I  could  not  fail 
to  notice.  It  was  an  instant's  work  to  shut  off  the 


162       JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

water.  I  had  no  plan.  The  water  was  oozing  out  of 
the  joints.  The  fire  was  beautiful — best  fire  for  weeks. 

Now,  if  my  mind  had  not  hurried  in  the  first  place ; 
if  I  had  enjoyed  the  confidence  of  a  professional,  I 
would  have  known  where  the  pipe  was,  for  drawing  oif 
the  water.  I  did  not.  I  had  hurried  my  job.  My 
feet  and  hands  had  outrun  my  brain  and  my  self-con- 
ceit had  outrun  both.  I  accordingly  turned  a  valve  in 
a  pipe,  hitherto  considered  useless,  and  out  of  it 
streamed  a  yard  of  boiling  water.  After  that,  all  is  a 
dream.  I  drenched  in  steam;  boiled  in  water  and 
stewed  in  self-abnegation.  Then  the  dammed  pipe — 
please  notice  that  this  is  not  swearing — ceased  to  run. 
I  bailed  the  cellar  out  and  it  was  eleven  o'clock  and  no 
sign  of  the  recession  of  water  in  the  glass.  It  still 
showed  chock-full. 

Then  I  did  something  again  in  a  hurry.  It  was 
awful.  I  took  a  stilson  wrench  and  took  off  the  pet- 
cock  on  the  water  level  to  make  a  bigger  flow  of  water. 
You  don't  know  what  I  did!  Neither  do  I,  now.  But 
the  minute  I  did  it  and  the  water  and  steam  began  to 
roar  and  the  water  rose  on  the  floor  and  I  began  to  run 
to  and  fro  leaping  to  the  fray  with  water  buckets  of 
scalding  water,  which  I  poured  on  the  lawn,  I  knew 
that  I  had  hurried.  For  how  in  the  name  of  Jupiter 
Pluvius,  Boiling  Hot,  was  I  ever  to  get  the  pet-cock 
back.  If  allowed  to  run  it  would  empty  the  entire 
boiler;  we  should  all  be  blown  sky-high.  And  I  could 
not  put  in  a  threaded  screw  against  four  pounds  of 
red-hot  steam  and  forty  pounds  boiling-water  pres- 
sure. I  prayed !  And  the  water  sprayed  also.  My 
feet  were  boiled.  My  brain  was  stewed.  My  hands 
were  parboiled.  My  wits  were  a  ragout. 

Here  is  my  point.  I  took  two  minutes  off  for  con- 
sultation with  my  laggard  mind.  I  called  it  back  into 
my  presence — presence  of  mind,  antidote  for  being  in 
a  hurry,  otherwise  being  rattled.  "The  hair  of  the  dog 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES       163 

is  good  for  the  bite,"  says  I;  "I  will  give  her  cold 
water."  I  did.  The  pipe  from  the  cold  ran  into  the 
hot  at  a  junction-point;  the  water  ran  cold  out  of  the 
fool  vent  tha  I  had  made;  I  attacked  it  with  the  pet- 
cock  and  the  stilson. 

I  draw  the  veil  over  the  struggle.  That  water, 
eighty  pound  pressure,  took  me  in  the  mouth,  the  ears, 
up  my  sleeves,  thru  the  waistcoat,  out  of  the  small  of 
my  back,  thru  my  liver  and  into  my  Spanish  Influenza. 
I  was  Noah  with  no  ark.  There  was  only  one  comfort ; 
my  wife  did  not  see  it.  But  I  conquered  just  before 
sinking  into  a  watery  grave. 

MORAL :     Think  twice  before  you  start  anything. 


ON  "THE  WAYSIDE  LILY" 

S  YOU  go  upon  the  streets  on  an  August  day, 
or  pass  by  train  thru  the  towns  between  Lew- 
iston   and   Brunswick,    you    see  boys    with 
masses  of  pond-lilies — the  loveliest  of  water- 
flowers,  ivory,  with  hearts  of  gold,  finer  than 
the  goldsmith  evar  fashioned. 
Often  from  the  train  window,  you  may  see  the  place 
whence  these  flowers  come.  They  lie,  white  in  the  morn- 
ing sun  and  glistening  with  the  dew,  along  the  river 
bank,  in  the  Androscoggin  River,  at  Lisbon  Falls. 

How  many  people  know  that  these  flowers  were 
placed  in  the  river  by  Edward  Plummer  of  Lisbon 
Falls,  who  was  a  big  man  in  his  day  and  who  presum- 
ably had  "too  much  business"  to  bother  with  "flowers"  ? 
He  built  railroads ;  ran  lumbering  operations  on  the  Big 
River;  handled  crews  of  men  all  the  way  from  the 
MagaUoway  to  the  boom  at  Lisbon  Falls ;  did  a  big  saw- 
mill business  and  was  a  dreamer  also,  conceiving  and 


164       JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

pushing  thru  the  railroad  into  the  heart  of  the  lumber- 
regions  of  the  Rangeleys,  years  and  years  ago. 

Mr.  Plummer  brought  the  roots  of  these  lilies  down 
home  from  distant  ponds  and  put  them  in  good  ground 
in  the  placid  waters  by  the  shore.  And  there  they  have 
grown  and  multiplied  and  now  they  gem  the  green 
shores  of  the  stream  and  lie  out  there  in  all  the  glory 
of  God's  own  beauty — the  suggestion  of  the  utility  of 
perfume  and  of  loveliness. 

We  perpetuate  our  names  oftener  by  the  acts  of 
thoughtfulness  for  those  who  are  to  come  after  us, 
than  in  any  other  way.  The  man  who  plants  elms  by 
his  roadway  is  of  the  same  school  as  Mr.  Plummer. 
These  men  do  not  expect  to  be  remembered  but  some- 
one sits  some  day  grateful  in  their  shade ;  looks  up  thru 
the  branches,  hears  the  birds  sing  and  sees  them  nest- 
ing in  the  branches,  and  he  breathes  a  prayer  for  the 
soul  of  the  man  who  planted  the  tiny  tree.  Perhaps  the 
prayer  and  blessing  reach  farther  on  the  way  to  the 
throne,  than  prayers  bought  and  paid  for  in  coin,  less 
enduring  than  the  lilies  of  the  placid  stream  and  the 
leaves  of  the  spreading  elm. 

You  recall,  somewhere,  the  wayside  spring.  You 
stop  to  lave  in  its  cool  waters  or  drink  from  its  running 
stream.  Someone  put  the  bed  of  the  spring  there  and 
welled  it  for  your  refreshment.  The  birds  come  and 
drink.  The  wayside  dog  laps  at  the  rivulet  that  runs 
thru  the  dusty  road  away  from  the  shade  that  follows 
the  running  water.  All  nature  gives  thanks.  Do  these 
fail  to  reach  the  throne?  Does  the  little  child  that 
buries  his  face  in  the  perfume  of  the  pond-lily  ever  for- 
get it?  And  long  years  after,  possibly,  may  he  not  be 
stirred  to  some  childhood  memory  and  some  return  to 
the  simpler  things  of  innocence  and  virtue  by  the  influ- 
ence of  the  flower  ? 

This  is  not  all  bunkum — I  believe.  The  good  Lord 
made  flowers  and  running  waters  and  brooks  and  trees 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES       165 

to  have  their  sway  over  human  lives.  Here  and  there 
a  man  lives,  who  feels  these  things  and  practices  the 
religion  of  service  to  others  in  the  simpler  way.  He 
leaves  behind  him,  not  alone  memorials  of  the  material 
things  of  life, — stocks,  bonds,  factories  and  automo- 
biles— but  even  things  that  go  on  living  after  he  has 
gone.  The  grove  of  pines  that  he  has  saved  from  the 
portable  mill  and  deeded  to  the  town  in  perpetuity, 
where  tired  mothers  may  go  in  the  hot  afternoon  and 
there,  with  their  children  beside  them  in  safety,  find 
the  rest  and  comfort  that  otherwise  might  be  denied 
them ;  the  play-ground  of  the  boys ;  the  old  brook  that 
weaves  so  closely  into  memory  after  the  weary  years 
have  fled. 

And  so  the  pond-lily  that  the  boys  sell  on  the 
streets,  suggests  all  this  and  much  more  which  you 
may  add  of  your  own  reflection,  with  the  single  thought 
"Inasmuch  as  ye  have  done  it  unto  one  of  the  least  of 
these,  my  brethren,  ye  have  done  it  unto  me." 


ON  "TABLE  MANNERS" 

EARS  ago  it  was  good  form  to  eat  with  your 
knife.  And  there  was  a  reason.  It  was  a 
long  advance  on  the  etiquette  that  insisted 
that  "fingers  were  made  before  forks." 

It  never  seems  to  old-fashioned  folk  that 
the  indictment  of  the  table-knife  as  a  food- 
freighter  was  well-taken.  It  was  no  mean  accomplish- 
ment to  "eat  with  the  knife."  It  took  dexterity,  for  in- 
stance, to  eat  peas  with  an  old-fashioned  steel  table- 
knife,  and  a  technical  aptitude  at  it  was  as  difficult  as 
playing  the  piano.  Most  of  my  gray-haired  readers — 
if  I  have  any  left— recall  men  who  had  a  knife-tech- 


166       JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

nique  that  was  swift,  sure,  accurate  and  profound.  It 
always  seemed  cruel,  to  their  presence,  to  insist  upon 
change  of  style.  Nothing  was  more  beautiful  than  to 
see  a  full  load  of  food  balanced  on  a  knife  in  mid-air, 
halted  on  its  way  to  doom  while  the  artist  delayed  a  bit, 
to  discuss  with  another  kindred  soul,  similarly  halting, 
such  profound  subjects  as  "The  Immortality  of  the 
Soul"  or  the  details  of  Predestination.  There  were 
men  in  those  days  who  could  even  gesture  with  a  knife- 
load  and  never  spill  a  bean. 

But  they  have  mostly  gone,  those  old  experts.  The 
few  that  exist  are  called  sword-swallowers  and  are 
either  ostracised  altogether  or  are  eating  at  the  second 
table.  The  same  thing  has  happened  to  those  who 
drink  out  of  their  saucers  and  go  to  table  in  their  shirt 
sleeves  and  drink  out  of  the  finger  bowls.  Years  ago, 
it  was  not  simply  permissible  to  drink  out  of  the 
"sasser" — it  was  an  accomplishment.  To  see  a  man 
pour  his  tea  into  his  saucer  and  cool  it  off  and  then  lift 
it  with  firm  touch  and  sip  it  with  a  long,  soothing, 
sibilant,  gurgling,  fugue-like  cadence  that  could  be 
heard  in  the  next  county,  was  to  see  and  hear  the 
proper  thing.  The  louder  noise  he  could  make,  the 
more  desirable  dinner-guest  he  was  considered.  If  he 
wanted  to  do  a  little  fin-de-siecle  flourish,  he  dipped  his 
gingerbread  in  the  tea  in  his  saucer  and  then  played  a 
solo  in  double-bass  with  it  thru  his  mustache.  And 
then  if  he  were  a  true  artist  and  could  wipe  his  mus- 
tache on  his  coat  sleeve  daintily — daintily,  mark  you — 
without  the  slightest  suggestion  of  coarseness  but  with 
that  infinite  considerateness  that  betokens  the  saving 
of  napkins,  he  was  worth  while;  for  napkins  were 
rarely  given  out  except  to  the  minister. 

I  do  not  think  much  has  been  gained  by  lowering 
the  napkin  from  the  chin  to  the  base  of  the  stomach. 
A  bishop  who  wears  a  raw-silk  apron  was  asked  at  a 
dinner  party  where  I  once  was,  "What  has  most  im- 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES       167 

pressed  you  since  you  became  a  bishop?"  "Madam," 
he  replied,  "the  one  thing  that  has  most  impressed  me 
since  becoming  a  bishop  is  the  ease  with  which  my  nap- 
kin slips  out  of  my  lap."  All  of  these  things  have 
merely  taken  the  freedom  out  of  feeding.  It  only 
amounts  to  a  greater  hardship  when  by  travel  or 
adversity  or  return  to  frontier  conditions,  one  has  to 
eat  as  men  eat  in  the  raw.  Of  course  we  have  pro- 
gressed in  table  manners  in  some  respects,  since  the 
days  when  the  person  who  could  reach  farthest,  fared 
best, — but  not  in  all  respects.  The  best  table  manner  is 
happiness,  and  it  is  to  be  doubted  if  we  are  getting  any 
more  of  that  than  we  did  in  the  old  days  when  there 
was  less  restraint  and  more  fun.  Laugh,  joke,  have 
fun  and  frolic — that  is  the  best  table  manner.  A  sol- 
emn butler  is  guaranteed  to  give  the  average  man 
angina  pectoris  at  the  age  of  fifty.  There  is  no  ner- 
vous dyspepsia  where  there  is  good  humor,  no  talk  of 
business,  no  silences,  no  bickerings  between  husband 
and  wife,  no  repression  of  the  natural  sport  of  child- 
hood, no  fault-finding  over  food. 

I  do  not  deprecate  dainty  eating.  But  it  makes 
little  difference  which  fork  a  man  uses  for  spearing  his 
oysters.  Table-manners  are  matters  of  passing  fash- 
ion. Neatness,  clean-washed  faces,  clean  apparel  and 
common  decency  with  happiness  go  further  than  much 
flummididdle  and  many  folderols.  And  best  of  all — is 
enlightening  and  diverting  talk.  Give  us  that  and — 
dear  stranger  coming  to  dine  with  me — you  may  eat 
with  your  knife  and  sip  from  your  saucer,  so  long  as 
you  do  it  as  to  the  table-manner  born. 


ON  "FRACTIONS  HERE  AND  THERE" 


HERE  is  just  one  little  red-cheeked,  lovable 
girl,  eight  years  old,  over  against  me,  and  our 
heads  are  very  close  together,  for  she  is 
studying  fractions. 

Eheu,  fugaces  labuntur  anni!  Dear  old 
Horace !  The  years  passed  no  doubt,  swiftly 
away  by  the  side  of  the  cool  waters  of  the  Digentia  in 
his  Sabine  Hills,  but  not  more  swiftly  than  to  one  who 
sits  with  a  girl  of  two  braids  of  chestnut  hair,  conning 
fractions  once  again. 

Are  we  in  the  twilight  all  together,  friends  tonight ! 
And  do  we  whose  hair  is  whitened, — others  may  have 
no  interest  in  this  evening's  talk — consider  the  days 
when  "the  rule  of  three  perplexes  me  and  fractions 
drive  me  mad."  Did  you  ever  go  to  a  little  red-school- 
house  ?  Did  you  ever  go  to  a  schoolhouse  that  had  any 
paint  on  it  whatever  ?  Did  you  ever  see  the  stove  fun- 
nel get  red-hot?  Did  you  ever  see  the  late  afternoon 
shadows  lengthen  on  the  blackboard  and  the  sun's  last 
rays  shine  on  the  very  problem  that  you  missed  on? 
And  was  that  not  a  fraction  ?  There  is  a  boy  over  in  the 
back  seat  there.  Do  you  know  him  ?  He  has  hair  that 
sticks  up  desperately  over  his  head.  He  has  a  suit  of 
clothes  that  is  reminiscent  of  the  Civil  War.  He  has 
warts — mention  them  not.  He  has  freckles — gold-be- 
spattered spangles  of  out-door  life.  He  has  cow-hide 
boots.  He  is  scratching  on  a  slate.  His  face  is  working 
into  weird  contortions.  You  do  not  know  him.  You 
never  can  know  him.  He  was  a  part  of  you  and  yet  is 
no  more.  He  was  of  you  and  with  you  and  you  with 
him;  but  he  has  gone  with  the  passing  years.  You 
lived  in  him  and  of  him — you  know  not  how — but  O !  so 
different.  You  lived  with  him  as  a  Conqueror!  A 
Prince  of  the  R~alm;  a  Leader  of  Armies;  the  Greatest 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES       169 

Baseball  Pitcher;  Proprietor  of  a  Candy  Shop;  Presi- 
dent of  the  United  States ;  the  King  of  Sleuths ;  Daniel 
Boone  and  Nick  Whiffles.  Is  that  little  lad  your 
Fraction  or  are  you  his  Fraction? 

Fractions  are  proper,  improper,  even  vulgar. 
Which  are  you?  You  owed  something  to  that  little 
boy — who  has  gone  with  Horace's  fleeting  years.  Do 
you  dare  to  go  up  to  that  little  boy  in  the  back  seat 
there  studying  fractions  and  whisper  your  name  into 
his  ear  and  tell  him  how  you  have  turned  out  in  the 
process  of  reducing  life  to  the  common  denominator  of 
manhood?  Can  you  take  him  on  your  knee — your 
earlier  self — with  all  those  dreams,  hopes  and  fancies 
of  boyhood  greatness  and  tell  him  that,  all  in  all,  you 
have  done  your  best,  lived  straight;  done  your  addi- 
tions and  your  divisions  according  to  rule?  Can  you 
truthfully  say  that,  such  as  you  are,  you  have  been  fair 
to  the  little  boy  and  his  dreams  and  that  the  only 
trouble  was  that  his  dreams  were  too  big  for  you  to 
accomplish,  because  there  are  but  few  places  nowadays 
for  Napoleons? 

My  little  girl  over  opposite  me  cannot  quite  under- 
stand why  we  cannot  add  a  fourth  and  a  fifth  together 
without  making  them  twentieths,  especially  as  I  trans- 
late all  fractions  into  mince-pie.  But  she  will  some 
day.  She  will  learn  that,  in  the  great  problem  of  the 
world,  it  is  necessary  in  adding  this  fraction  of  a 
human  being  to  that,  this  fourth  part  of  a  proper  man 
or  woman  to  that  fifth  part  of  a  proper  man  or  woman, 
we  must  reduce  them  to  the  common  denominator  of 
the  human  soul.  She  will  know  that  when  we  try  to 
add  one  Kaiser  to  four  social  democrats,  it  will  be  nec- 
essary to  find  out  how  much  Man  there  is  in  each  of 
them.  Only  when  she  does  this  will  she  know  what 
the  answer  to  the  problem  may  be.  She  cannot  under- 
stand yet  why,  if  you  multiply  the  denominator  and  get 
a  bigger  figure,  the  fraction  grows  smaller. 


170       JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

But  she  will — some  day  when  she  sees  a  man  who 
makes  his  denominator  hoarded  dollars — wrung  from 
people,  sneaked  out  of  circulation  and  beneficence  just 
to  make  a  big  bank-balance.  She  will  see  how  by  multi- 
plying his  denominator,  the  fraction  of  this  man  be- 
comes smaller  and  smaller. 

Dear  little  girl  of  two  braids !  Life  has  everything 
— fractions,  units,  mixed  numbers,  proportions;  ques- 
tions and  answers  for  you — all  waiting.  For  us  whose 
hair  is  white  with  years  most  of  the  answers  are  writ- 
ten— all  but  One  I 


ON  "KEEPING  A  DOG" 

T  IS  according  to  how  you  accent  the  verb.  If 
you  really  want  to  keep  a  dog,  why  you  prob- 
ably can,  provided  he  is  the  kind  of  a  dog  that 
you  can  keep.  Some  dogs  just  wander  off, 
and  then  you  are  in  luck  unless  your  wife  in- 
sists on  offering  a  reward.  Then  you  will 
get  your  dog  back  and  usually  two  or  three  more.  A 
dog  has  his  times  and  seasons  for  wandering.  Maybe 
he  is  off  after  a  bone.  I  had  a  dog  once — a  wooly-eared 
dog  that  bit  the  legs  of  all  thin  people,  under  the  im- 
pression, as  I  always  believed,  that  they  were  animated 
bones.  It  was  lucky  that  the  dog  died,  before  short 
skirts  came.  Long  skirts  cover  a  multitude  of  bones. 

This  dog  of  mine  disliked  the  gas  man  and  the  man 
who  came  to  take  our  electric-light  meter.  He  bit 
them  regularly — or  irregularly;  I  mean  that  he  bit 
them  regularly  as  they  came  and  irregularly  as  to  place. 
He  was  an  intelligent  dog  and  seemed  to  appreciate  his 
duty  to  me.  Even  tho  mistaken  in  his  methods,  he 
plain1  y  sought  to  relieve  me  of  apparent  burdens  due  to 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES       171 

gas-bills  and  electric  light  bills.  If  I  had  had  two  dogs, 
like  him,  I  might  have  had  one  of  them  biting  at  the 
back  door  and  one  at  the  front.  As  it  was,  well,  the 
dog  wasted  a  good  many  of  his  bites. 

It  is  easier  to  keep  two  dogs  than  it  is  to  keep  one. 
You  do  not  miss  one  of  them  when  he  is  away  and  you 
are  not  running  around  hunting  for  a  dog.  And  hunt- 
ing for  a  restless  dog  is  a  man's  job.  The  doy  may  be 
here  now,  and  the  next  hour,  he  may  be  there.  It  would 
take  two  motor-cycles  and  a  side-car,  to  keep  run  of 
some  dogs.  So,  if  you  can  arrange  it  so  that  by  having 
several  dogs,  you  don't  miss  one  or  two  of  them  when 
they  fail  to  come  around  after  their  meals,  you  will  get 
along  better. 

Remarks  about  a  dog  ruined  Pudd'nhead  Wilson. 
Said  he,  "If  I  owned  half  of  that  dog,  I  would  kill  my 
half."  How  could  a  man  own  half  of  a  dog  and  if  he 
did,  which  half  would  he  own?  And  if  he  killed  half 
of  a  dog,  wouldn't  he  be  killing  the  other  half,  too,  and 
what  good  is  half  of  a  dog,  any  way?  He's  a  darned 
fool,"  said  the  people  of  the  country  village,  "a  reg'lar 
pudd'nhead." 

Of  course  there  is  something  about  a  dog  that  steals 
into  your  affection.  If  you  have  a  real  dog  it  is  always 
a  question  of  whether  you  own  the  dog  or  he  owns  you. 
He  comes  into  the  house  and  muddies  the  rugs  and 
brings  in  his  strange  out-of-door  suggestions  and  all  of 
the  sand  in  the  vicinity  and  occasional  beef -livers  and 
odds  and  ends  of  neighbors'  apparel  and  a  few  rare 
insects,  but  when  he  snuggles  up  and  puts  his  nose  in 
your  hand  and  looks  up  with  loving  brown  eyes,  you 
rather  like  him.  My  dog  had  a  fondness  for  collecting 
things.  His  specialty  was  goloshes.  He  would  bring 
me  home  an  odd  overshoe  about  once  a  week.  He  found 
them  on  door-steps.  I  tried  to  train  him  to  bring  me 
home  a  pair  of  them — even  practiced  with  him  in 
teaching  him  to  take  up  two  at  once.  But  he  never 


172       JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

seemed  to  get  the  idea.  That  is  where  Pudd'nhead 
Wilson  comes  in.  I  would  have  liked  to  have  killed 
that  half  of  my  dog.  What  I  wanted  was  a  two-over- 
shoe dog,  if  I  was  going  to  have  any. 

Some  day,  some  one  will  invent  a  dog  that  will  be 
a  satisfactory  house  dog.  I  never  saw  one  yet;  but 
there  will  be  one,  when  we  have  everything  safe  for 
democracy  and  dogocracy.  I  feel  it  in  my  bones. 
That  dog  will  never  wander  from  home;  he  will  not 
bark  at  neighbors'  automobiles ;  he  will  not  engage  in 
rough  fights ;  he  will  not  kill  chickens ;  he  will  not  catch 
the  mange ;  he  will  not  bite  telephone  men ;  he  will  not 
have  fits ;  he  will  not  come  in  dripping  wet  and  leap  in 
the  lady's  lap;  he  will  not  steal  out  of  the  pantry;  he 
will  not  dig  up  the  front  lawn ;  he  will  not  dig  up  neigh- 
bors' front  lawns;  he  will  not  howl  when  the  church 
bell  rings ;  he  will  not  bury  beef -bones  behind  the  par- 
lor sofa;  he  will  not  disseminate  fleas  among  the  chil- 
dren; he  will  not  go  away  with  pedlers.  Apart  from 
the  few  imperfections,  a  dog  is  all  right  now.  But 
when  McAdoo  has  more  time,  we  want  him  and  Sam 
Gompers  to  take  up  the  matter  of  the  dog  and  make 
him  so  that  any  man  will  as  soon  have  an  automobile 
as  try  to  keep  a  dog. 


ON  "MAN'S  NECKTIES" 

NECKTIE  is  a  thing  of  beauty  on  the  bosom  of 
a  man. 

I  am  wrong  and  will  begin  again — a  neck- 
tie is  a  butterfly  under  a  man's  chin.  On 
thinking  the  definition  over  carefully,  it  yet 
seems  open  to  criticism — there  are  few  white 
butterflies  and  almost  none  that  are  black.  A  necktie 
is  a  tie  for  a  man's  neck.  Let  it  go  at  that ;  only  it  is 
not  for  his  neck,  at  all.  It  is  for  his  shirt-front  and 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES       173 

his  neck  sticks  up  above  it,  like  a  sore  thumb  out  of  a 
bandage,  and  his  Adam's  apple  wears  the  nap  off  of  it 
and  there  is  no  real  connection  between  a  necktie  and  a 
neck  except  certain  neighborly  proximity.  And  you 
can't  tie  a  man's  neck.  You  can  only  tie  his  collar. 
As  well  call  a  "collar  button"  a  neck-button  as  call  a 
collar-tie  a  necktie. 

Adam  wore  no  necktie.  If  for  no  other  reason  than 
this,  he  should  have  been  happy  and  left  forbidden 
fruit  alone.  When  Adam  got  up  in  the  morning — why 
there  he  was !  You  see.  No  collar-button  to  hunt  for; 
no  necktie  to  select.  And  then,  too,  Adam  did  NOT 
have  to  hunt  to  find  whether  his  union  suit  was  inside 
or  out.  A  large  sign  should  be  printed  on  the  seat  of 
each  union  suit,  'This  side  up  with  Care."  There  is 
nothing  more  sad  in  modern  life  than  the  way  union 
suits  behave  in  the  night.  You  take  them  off  and  lay 
them  carefully  away  right  side  up.  And  in  the  night 
they  squirm  around  and  turn  themselves  inside  out.  I 
have  gotten  up  suddenly  in  the  night  and  caught  them 
at  it. 

I  have  been  studying  the  life  of  Abraham  lately. 
I  wonder  if  he  wore  a  necktie.  None  of  his  pictures 
show  him  as  such.  Noah  wore  a  blouse  open  at  the 
back.  In  all  of  the  pictures  I  have  seen,  Noah  gives 
evidence  of  having  had  to  be  hooked  up  by  his  wife 
every  morning.  I  suppose  he  adopted  this  kind  of  a 
costume  for  purposes  of  natatorial  exercises  in  case  the 
ark  sprung  a  leak. 

There  is  no  evidence  of  the  time  when  the  necktie 
came  into  vigorous  fashion.  Have  you  looked  at  a  pic- 
ture of  G.  Washington  lately?  Do  you  know  what 
kind  of  necktie  he  wore  ?  Well,  I  will  tell  you.  I  have 
before  me  the  pictures  of  the  first  seven  Presidents  of 
the  United  States.  Every  one  of  them  wore  either  a 
white  shirt  and  white  stock  or  else  a  high  dickey  and 
a  black  stock.  Not  one  of  them  yielded  to  the  plea  of 


174       JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

the  haberdasher,  "Here  is  something  new  in  a  beauti- 
ful crushed  strawberry  effect."  Old  Hickory's  collar 
came  up  above  his  ears  and  he  wore  black  stock  enough 
to  clothe  a  High  School  girl  of  today  for  three  years — 
all  except  her  boots. 

There  is  no  question  today  that  if  the  same  freedom 
can  be  secured  in  everything  else  as  there  is  in  selection 
of  one's  necktie,  the  world  is  going  to  be  very  safe  for 
democracy  which  will  be  just  as  varied  as  neckties. 
There  is  nothing  now,  no  law  whatever — to  prevent  a 
red-headed  man  from  wearing  a  red  and  green  necktie. 
In  fact,  they  generally  do.  Gamblers  are  now  perfectly 
free  to  wear  long,  flowing  white  string  ties;  like 
William  Jennings  Bryan,  who  is  equally  at  home  in  a 
black  string  tie.  No  statesman  except  Ham  Lewis 
would  think  of  wearing  anything  but  a  black  string  tie. 
I  notice  that  both  of  our  Maine  senators  have  taken 
to  them  like  ducks  to  water.  A  real  old-fashioned 
dyed-in-the-wool,  back-to-the-people  statesman  like  Joe 
Cannon,  wears  a  little  black  bow  tie,  ready-made,  that 
goes  on  with  an  elastic  and  tucks  under  a  paper  collar — 
a  very  neat  style  never  wholly  effaced.  Woodrow 
Wilson  usually  wears  a  black  four-in-hand ;  that  is  pro- 
fessional. Ministerial  gentlemen  used  to  wear  white 
neckties.  They  passed  on  save  in  a  few  wayside 
pulpits  with  the  Prince  Albert  coat  and  the  high  hat. 
There  was  a  time  when  a  man  would  not  have  known 
if  he  really  had  religion  without  a  white  necktie. 

It  is  odd  that  George  Creel  and  Secretary  Baker  and 
Hoover  have  not  as  yet  indicated  what  we  are  to  do 
about  neckties.  We  do  not  really  need  them.  We 
could  wear  our  old  socks  in  place  of  them.  Think  it 
over,  Hoover.  They  are  pure  waste! 


ON  "MAKING  AN  IMPRESSION" 

GOOD  many  years  ago  I  went  fishing  at 
Moosehead  Lake  with  Seth  Chandler,  later 
Mayor  of  Lewiston.  We  visited  Jim  Ham  on 
North  Bay,  a  remote  farmhouse  with  no 
roads  approaching  it  within  many  miles,  and 
reached  only  over  the  highway  of  the  bound- 
ing seas,  in  the  then  omnipresent  birch  canoe.  Jim 
had  carved  his  homestead  out  of  the  deep  woods  and  in 
a  field  of  blackened  stumps  raised  corn,  wheat,  pota- 
toes, and  strawberries,  so  big  that,  as  he  used  to  say, 
he  had  to  "have  a  cant-dog  to  turn  'em  over  so  that 
they  would  ripen  on  both  sides." 

One  virgin  morn  we  poked  the  nose  of  our  canoe — 
my  first  mile  in  any  canoe — into  the  nose  of  Duck  Cove 
and  there,  under  the  dry-ki,  we  saw  more  trout  than  I 
ever  saw  before  or  since,  a  wiggling  mass  of  "black 
backs,"  feeding  unmolested.  Jim  threw  in  the  old 
line,  tied  to  an  alder  pole  and  began  "derrickin'  'em 
out,"  throwing  trout  thirty  feet  over  his  head  and 
shouting  at  the  top  of  his  voice,  "the  trouts  is  a 
climb  in'  of  the  trees." 

Such  a  day!  A  happy,  hearty  day  with  a  weary 
ending  as  at  night,  tired  and  happy  with  unaccustomed 
labor  and  adventure,  we  came  home  to  the  little  frame 
house  standing  all  alone  in  the  clearing.  We  expected 
to  see  only  the  familiar  household,  but  not  so !  In  the 
Moosehead  country,  in  those  days,  "company"  was 
company  and  must  be  seen  and  heard,  and  so,  by  some 
mysterious  telegraphy  out  of  nowhere,  the  friends  of 
Jim  and  his  dear,  sweet  wife  had  gathered  to  see  the 
visitors.  There  were  Hams  from  far  and  near;  from 
Dover  and  Foxcroft;  from  Seboomook  and  Socatean; 
from  Greenville  and  Kineo,  sons  and  daughters,  sons- 
in-law  and  sisters-in-law  and  a  great  supper  in  the 


176       JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

old  kitchen  which  was  also  sitting  room  and  parlor. 

I  slept  that  night  in  the  "spare  room,"  altho  of 
course  it  was  not  "spare"  at  all,  being  constantly  in  use 
and  the  Lord  knows  whom  I  pre-empted.  It  was  on  the 
ground  floor,  right  off  the  kitchen,  the  door  of  thin  pine 
opening  outward,  as  happens  to  be  of  importance  in  this 
recital.  I  was  to  room  alone,  a  remarkable  considera- 
tion, for,  as  I  looked  back  into  the  kitchen  and  saw  all 
the  Hams  sitting  there  smoking  or  knitting,  I  won- 
dered what  necromancy  of  figures  could  accommodate 
so  many  in  so  few  rooms  in  so  tiny  a  house  on  so  great 
a  pond. 

I  shall  never  forget  that  bed-time — my  introduction 
to  the  mysteries  of  a  night  by  the  greatest  of  all  our 
inland  lakes.  There  was  a  distant  throb  in  the  world. 
It  seemed  to  sound  like  the  sibilant  breathing  of  the 
great  soul  of  the  Moosehead  country.  I  noticed  it  as  I 
took  off  my  boots — a  sort  of  throbbing  and  rustling  as 
of  Pan,  the  great  god.  I  noticed  it  as  I  further  dis- 
robed, in  manner  not  to  be  detailed.  I  noticed  it  as  I 
stood  there  in  the  cold,  sharp  air  of  May-time,  in  my 
night  shirt;  for  those  were  pre-pajama  days.  I  no- 
ticed it  as  I  gazed  out  of  the  window  on  the  star-lit 
night.  I  noticed,  too,  that  it  did  not  seem  all  to  be  out 
of  doors.  Some  of  it  seemed  to  come  from  under  the 
bed.  It  was  a  low,  ghostly  sort  of  sound.  It  sort  of 
rustled  and  guttered  like  a  slithering  It.  The  odor  of 
it  was  prehistoric,  methought.  I  would  investigate, 
and  I  did.  Taking  the  tallow  candle  in  my  hand,  I 
softly  lifted  the  bed-valance  and  peered  beneath.  I 
saw  IT ;  IT  saw  me.  With  a  leap  there  bounded  forth 
with  one  almighty  growl  about  48  pounds  of  gray  and 
white  dog — wild  to  strangers  and  especially  to  me  at 
that  moment,  and  I  leaped,  three  paces  in  advance,  for 
the  kitchen,  where  sat  Jim  and  his  wife  and  Frank  and 
his  best  girl,  and  Ernest  and  his  sister,  and  two  neigh- 
bors and  their  families  of  bashful,  bouncing  daughters 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES       177 

from  over  Kineo  way  and  a  few  social  callers  from 
Greenville,  forty  miles  down  the  lake. 

My  entree  into  the  Ham  circle  is  still  told  in  Piscata- 
quis  county.  There  may  be  more  sudden  things  than 
the  unannounced  entree  of  the  star  visitor  with  fifty 
pounds  of  dog  hanging  to  his  shirt-tail,  but  in  a  quiet 
and  ordinarily  calm  circle,  such  a  thing  may  pass  as  an 
epoch.  "My  God !"  said  Mother  Ham  as  she  raised  her 
hands,  fell  backwards  in  her  old  rocker  and  went 
heels  up,  in  a  most  unladylike  position.  "Hi,  Bose! 
Goddlemighty !"  yelled  Jim,  as  he  grabbed  at  the  dog. 
I  leaped  over  the  prostrate  form  of  Mrs.  Ham  and 
landed  In  the  arms  of  Frank's  best  girl.  As  I  flew,  the 
dog  waved  behind  me  like  the  starry  flag  on  a  nor'west 
wind,  and  as  he  went  along,  he  took  my  shirt. 

I  suppose  that,  right  here,  we  ought  to  draw  the 
veil,  but  they  were  wearing  nightshirts  short  in  those 
days  and  there  wasn't  any  veil  except  what  the  dog  had 
and  I  did  not  feel  competent  to  regain  it.  So  I  buried 
myself  in  the  voluminous  folds  of  Frank's  best  girl's 
gown  until  Mrs.  Ham  recovered  her  equilibrium  and 
threw  a  bed-quilt  over  me,  enabling  me  to  make  apolo- 
gies and  compliments  to  the  ladies  and  to  retire. 

I  came  home  and  wrote  this  story  for  the  newspa- 
per, thirty-five  years  ago,  in  which,  as  I  recall  it,  I  re- 
marked that  we  had  been  most  cordially  and  warmly 
received  at  the  Ham  Farm  and  that  all  of  them,  the 
ladies  included,  united  in  saying  that  they  could  not 
see  too  much  of  me. 

It  is  my  opinion  that  if  you  are  going  to  make  an 
impression,  it  is  best  to  make  a  good  one.  This  is  one 
of  mine. 


WHAT  THIS  DAY  REALLY  MEANS 

Victory  Day,  November  11,  1918. 

HE  END  of  the  war! 

The  German  Empire,  proclaimed  for  world 
domination  three  generations  ago,  has  fallen. 
Instead  of  majestic  triumphs  along  Unter 
den  Linden,  with  captives  drawn  at  the 
chariot  wheels  of  the  Hun,  we  see  the  Hohen- 


zollerns  fleeing  to  the  shelter  of  neutral  land  in  far 
deeper  ignominy  than  ever  fled  Napoleon.  A  German 
Commune,  like  that  which  swept  with  anarchy  and 
rapine  thru  the  streets  of  Paris  nearly  fifty  years  ago, 
carries  the  red  flag  today  in  Berlin.  We  are  living 
years  in  a  day.  And  along  the  streets  of  this  Free 
People  of  America,  the  sounds  of  rejoicing  are  heard 
on  every  hand. 

The  breakdown  of  German  autocracy ;  the  end  of  this 
gigantic  world-war;  the  flight  of  the  Imperial  Hohen- 
zollerns  to  realms  altogether  "in  the  Dutch"  are  events 
of  staggering  significance.  But  these  are  not  the 
whole  of  it.  To  us,  the  events  of  the  day  and  hour 
carry  a  far  deeper  significance  in  the  things  that  abide 
with  the  Almighty  God. 

Every  person  who  knows  anything  about  the  funda- 
mental philosophy  and  religion  of  Germany,  knows 
well  that  from  the  days  of  Ferdinand  Christian  Bauer, 
down  to  the  latest  expositor,  there  has  been  a  relent- 
less effort  in  Germany  to  rob  the  Bible  of  all  its  super- 
natural and  spiritual  suggestion.  God  has  been  driven 
not  only  from  the  temples,  but  also  from  the  schools, 
the  homes,  the  hearts,  of  the  people,  so  far  as  autoc- 
racy could  do  it. 

In  its  place,  has  been  put  the  gigantic  Superman 
superstition  of  Nietsche,  Trietshke  and  Bernhardi. 
Haeckel  and  Von  Hartmann,  and  scores  of  smaller  skep- 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES       179 

tics  and  agnostics  have  preached  their  odious  doctrines 
of  materialism  and  boldly  asserted  that  any  means  was 
justifiable  in  the  attainment  of  the  world-dominion  of 
Germany.  Such  horrid  doctrine  did  the  eminent  Ger- 
man preacher,  Pastor  W.  Lehmann,  proclaim  to  a  great 
congregation — that  "Tho  it  may  sound  proud,  yet  will  I 
say  that  the  German  soul  is  God's ;  it  shall  rule  over  all 
mankind." 

It  is  this  ogre,  this  blasphemous  and  debasing  trav- 
esty on  Christianity,  that  has  fallen.  It  was  time. 
An  impious  philosophy,  married  to  efficiency,  had 
reared  a  hellish  brood.  These,  also,  have  been  driven 
out  of  Germany  in  this  amazing  debacle.  To  us,  the 
spiritual  vandalism,  resulting  from  the  emasculation 
of  God ;  the  Germanizing  of  Christ  and  the  consequent 
Godlessness  of  the  ruling  element  of  German  Nation- 
alism, are  of  far  deeper  significance  than  the  Kaiser's 
personality.  Hands  dripping  with  blood  of  Belgium 
as  they  hide  the  pitiable  face  of  the  Hohenzollern, 
fleeing  from  the  throne  of  his  fathers,  are  not  more 
stained  than  those  which  pointed  the  way  of  blood 
from  the  pulpits  or  set  the  lessons  of  impious  atheistic 
teachings  before  little  children  in  a  happy  land.  They 
deliberately  robbed  the  German  people  of  a  living  God 
and  in  His  place  set  up  a  German  god,  soulless,  military, 
lustful  of  power.  "The  German  soul  is  God's ;  it  shall 
rule  over  mankind." 

And  so  we  say — it  is  not  alone  a  tyranny  over  the 
political  welfare  of  a  people  that  falls  today.  It  is  the 
tyranny  over  thought,  pure  aspiration,  and  the 
sweet  and  precious  belief  in  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount, 
that  falls  with  the  ruins  of  that  mighty  political 
empire.  Democracy  is  henceforth  to  be  determined 
not  in  the  currency  of  Nietsche  but  in  that  of  Saint 
Paul.  Human  brotherhood  is  to  be  defined,  not  by  a 
God  with  a  German  soul,  but  by  a  God  who  is  a  univer- 
sal Father  as  expressed  by  Him  who  died  on  Calvary. 


180       JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

No  longer  shall  a  nation  teach  from  its  pulpits  its  own 
exclusive  partnership  with  a  merciless  God  and  a  lust- 
ful Savior.  The  eyes  of  the  German  people  are  today 
opened.  The  fraud  is  exposed.  The  superstition  of 
the  Superman  is  dead.  The  German  people  themselves 
see  it  today — else  why  did  God  forsake  them  in  battle  ? 
A  false  philosophy,  the  most  dangerous  and  pernicious 
ever  conceived  since  the  beginning  of  man,  has  met  its 
end.  Had  it  persisted,  the  world  would  have  been  en- 
slaved ;  Faith  would  have  died ;  Christ  would  have  be- 
come a  myth  and  God  a  soulless  mockery — the  mask  of 
a  German  ego,  conceived  in  lust  and  born  amid  slavery 
and  murder ! 

Celebrate!  There  never  was  a  day  like  it  before 
since  Earth  began  to  turn  within  the  realm  of  space! 
It  is  the  restoration  of  Brotherhood !  It  is  the  attesta- 
tion of  God's  loving  care!  It  is  the  apotheosis  of 
human  happiness.  They  must  be  celebrating  it  in 
Heaven! 


ON  "A  CERTAIN  FORM  OF  LAZINESS" 

HEN  I  was  a  boy,  my  mother  used  to  say  to  me, 
"What  in  the  world  are  you  doing?  I  never 
saw  so  lazy  a  boy  in  all  my  life.  You  just  sit 
and  sit  and  sit,  doing  nothing." 

And  I  would  say,  "I  am  not  doing  nothing. 
I'm  at  work.    I'm  thinkin'." 


I  believe  there  was  some  philosophy  in  my  remark, 
altho  at  the  time  it  was  made,  I  rather  think  that  it 
was  an  evasion.  There  was  philosophy  in  it  because 
boys  all  need  time  to  be  lazy.  They  have  a  righb  to  lie 
in  the  sand,  wiggle  their  bare  toes,  look  at  the  clouds  in 
wonder  and  merge  their  souls  in  the  infinite.  You  don't 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES       181 

really  understand  boys  if  you  think  they  are  made  for 
nothing  but  to  lug  in  wood;  tote  well-water;  lug  out 
ashes  and  study  books.  They  need  time  to  get  ac- 
quainted with  a  boy's  world. 

You  don't  understand  boys  very  well  if  you  forget 
that  they  have  problems.  You  don't  understand  them 
if  you  think  that  they  are  not  obliged  in  the  nature  of 
things  to  get  a  basis  on  which,  later  in  life,  to  do  busi- 
ness as  men.  There  is  a  regular  course  thru  which 
boys  have  to  go.  They  have  to  loaf  a  lot.  They  have 
to  fish.  They  have  to  roam  the  woods  searching  for 
acorns  and  beechnuts.  They  have  to  trap  squirrels. 
They  have  to  build  snow-forts.  They  have  to  fight  a 
lot.  They  have  to  set  up  stores  for  sale  of  household 
necessities  at  heavy  loss.  They  have  to  give  shows  in 
the  barn.  They  have  to  speculate  in  taws.  They  have 
to  play  hookey.  They  have  to  go  camping-out.  They 
have  to  keep  rabbits.  They  have  to  own  a  dog.  They 
have  to  swim,  a  lot.  They  have  to  play  certain  games. 
They  have  to  do  all  these  things  and  a  lot  more  in  order 
to  fulfill  a  boy's  destiny.  And  it  is  wrong  to  deny 
them  these  things.  And  they  have  to  think  a  lot, 
lazily  and  idly,  and  their  thoughts  are  as  full  of  wonder 
and  mystery  as  are  yours,  0  philosopher  and  pedant, 
wondering  beneath  the  stars — in  the  face  of  the 
Infinite ! 

Laziness  is  not  an  absolute  sin.  At  most  it  is  nega- 
tive badness  and  often  it  is  nothing  but  a  panacea  for 
the  wounded  nerves.  Boys  have  nerves.  They  have 
awful  attacks  of  them.  You  just  don't  know  a  boy  if 
you  can't  make  allowance  for  his  nerves.  He  comes 
home  all  tired  out  with  school.  He  works  like  a  little 
beaver  at  lessons.  His  tight  little  nervous  system  is 
all  frayed  out.  You  better  look  out  and  give  him  room 
to  compose  himself.  Give  him  leeway  to  be  lazy.  Give 
him  right  of  way  in  which  to  do  nothing.  He  will  live 
longer  and  grow  bigger  and  develop  more  if  you  let  him 


182       JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

lie  around  and  forget  that  he  has  any  chores  to  do. 
Let  him  "think." 

The  greatest  trouble  in  the  world  is  that  too  many 
people  try  to  run  us.  They  won't  let  us  alone.  Boys 
ought  to  be  encouraged  to  think  so  many  hours  a  day. 
There  should  be  lessons  in  observation  in  every  school. 
Boys  should  be  made  to  tell  the  teachers  what  they 
have  observed,  every  day.  Lessons  out  of  books  are 
not  much  good.  It  is  what  a  boy  has  seen  and  knows 
by  personal  observation.  It  was  this  that  made  Audu- 
bon  the  great  naturalist.  It  was  this  that  made  Lin- 
coln a  great  statesman.  A  great  many  people  said 
that  Thoreau  was  the  laziest  man  in  Massachusetts. 
He  did  act  that  way.  He  was  too  lazy,  almost,  to  keep 
food  in  the  cupboard  sufficient  for  the  next  meal.  But 
he  was  all  the  while  making  himself  the  classic-author 
of  American  literature — the  poet-naturalist  of  the 
world. 

Don't  give  up  the  habit  of  boyhood.  Take  a  little 
time  every  day  to  stop  and  think.  Consider  the  heav- 
ens, how  manifold ;  consider  the  fields  and  forests ;  con- 
sider man  in  the  image  of  God;  consider  thyself.  If 
you  spend  all  of  your  time  doing  chores,  what  are  you  ? 
But  if  you  spend  a  portion  of  your  time  considering 
your  destiny  and  your  opportunities,  what  may  not 
you  become? 


ON  "CLASSIFYING  MEN" 

HIL  LOWELL  of  Lewiston  has  been  a  mer- 
chant and  a  commercial  traveler  all  of  his  life 
— and  a  good  one.  He  fell  ill  a  year  or  so  ago, 
up  in  a  small  town  in  New  Hampshire.  He  is 
now  about  town  again,  not  robust  but  in 
God's  providence  likely  to  have  many  more 
happy  days. 

When  he  was  stricken,  his  daughter  hastened  to  his 
side.  When  able  to  speak,  the  doctor  was  summoned 
and  Mr.  Lowell  said:  "What  is  it,  doctor,  a  shock?" 
"Yes."  "I  thought  so,"  said  Mr.  Lowell.  Calling  his 
daughter,  he  said :  "Pack  my  samples ;  send  them  back 
to  the  House  (meaning  the  business  house),  tell  them 
that  I  am  very  ill  and  shall  never  take  the  road  again." 
It  was  done  as  directed  and  one  morning  word  was 
brought  to  the  invalid's  bedside  that  the  head  of  the 
New  York  house — a  great  merchant  from  a  great  city — 
was  down  stairs  and  would  like  to  see  him. 

"I  wanted  to  see  you,"  said  the  Head  of  the  House, 
"to  tell  you  to  be  of  good  cheer.  I  came  because  I 
wanted  to  come,  hoping  to  do  you  good." 

"But,  sir,"  was  the  reply,  "I  am  all  thru.  I  shall 
work  no  more.  I  have  resigned.  You  best  fill  my 
place.  My  connection  with  the  House  is  over.  I  am 
sorry;  but  it  is  the  end."  To  this  the  Head  of  the 
House  replied:  "We  shall  wait  and  see.  Be  of  gdod 
cheer.  Let  us  talk  of  other  things." 

A  little  while  later,  maybe  a  month,  a  letter  came  to 
the  sick  man,  saying  that  the  house  was  still  hoping 
for  his  better  health ;  that  it  had  not  filled  his  place  and 
had  no  present  intention  of  filling  it ;  no  desire  to  do  so. 
On  the  contrary,  it  had  retained  him  and  had  sent  out 
letters  to  all  of  his  customers  notifying  them  of  the 
circumstances  and  asking  them  to  consider  themselves 


184       JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

Mr.  Lowell's  customers.  They  had  sent  out  samples 
and  requested  orders. 

Other  letters  of  comfort  and  encouragement  fol- 
lowed this  and  a  few  days  ago  came  a  letter  from  the 
House  in  which  Mr.  Lowell  was  informed  that  things 
were  going  very  well  in  their  business  relations,  men- 
tioning sales  made  by  the  House  to  Mr.  L.'s  customers ; 
discussing  matters  intimately  and  enclosing  a  check  for 
some  hundreds  of  dollars  as  commissions  on  sales  made 
by  the  House  to  the  trade  formerly  handled  by  the 
invalid. 

I  am  relating  this  story  not  simply  because  it  is  a 
story  of  kindness  and  thoughtfulness — not  because  it 
is  the  Golden  Rule  in  business.  It  might  be  said  that 
if  there  were  more  such  instances,  there  would  be  fewer 
I.  W.  W.  It  might  be  said  that  if  there  were  fewer 
I.  W.  W.  there  would  be  more  such  instances.  It  might 
be  said  that  it  was  the  result  of  faithful  service  by  the 
Man  to  the  House.  It  might  be  said  that  it  is  such 
houses  that  win  the  service  that  calls  for  such 
examples. 

No!  That  is  not  the  reason.  The  real  reason  is 
more  subtle  and  more  difficult  to  express.  I  may  be 
encroaching  on  forbidden  ground  in  relating  it.  But  I 
tell  it  because  it  was  told  to  me  first  by  a  Lewiston  man 
who  said,  "That  was  fine,  I  think.  I  am  proud  to  tell 
the  story  because  the  firm  concerned  is  run  by  men  of 
my  Faith — Jews.  And  it  goes  to  show  that  you  cannot 
classify  men  by  race,  religion,  traditions,  antipathies. 
Men  are  men — or  not  men.  And  the  big  thing  we  are 
learning  in  this  day  of  trouble  as  Nations,  is  this  very 
thing.  All  brothers!" 


ON  "LIVING  BY  RIVERS" 

HEN  I  was  a  boy,  I  lived  by  a  river  and  I  know 
what  an  influence  big  rivers  are  apt  to  exert 
upon  boys. 

Rivers  reach  out  with  abounding  imagina- 
tion, to  youth.  This  river  of  my  youth  was 
one  of  the  four  great  rivers  of  Maine  and  led 
out  to  the  sea.  Many  big  ships  were  built  upon  it  and 
went  away  down  stream  into  the  distance  never  to 
return.  They  disappeared  behind  the  headlands,  but 
we  could  still  hear  the  voices  of  the  crews  chanteying 
"Way  Down  on  Rio !  Way  Down  on  the  Rio  Grande !" 
and  the  call  of  strange  places  was  felt  in  the  blood  of 
all  the  boys  of  our  town.  Many  boys  that  we  knew 
went  off  in  the  ships  and  came  back  perhaps  in  a  year 
or  two  for  a  little  stay  in  town,  swaggering  a  good  deal 
and  telling  strange  tales  of  spice-lands,  and  strange  for- 
eign cities — of  Lima  and  Callao,  and  "Frisco"  and 
South  Seas,  and  adventures  in  the  "Roaring  Forties." 
These  tales  seemed  to  belittle  the  quiet,  commonplace 
lives  of  us  stay-at-home  boys  and  never  a  boy  returned 
to  sea  without  some  other  boy  went  with  him.  Now  and 
then  an  old  ship,  built  in  our  town,  came  back  and  tied 
up  at  the  dock  and  was  ultimately  broken  up.  So  the 
ships  that  went  and  the  boys  that  went — some  never 
to  return — all  had  their  effect  upon  us.  Our  river 
seemed  like  the  resistless  current  sweeping  us  away 
to  the  lands  of  Sindbad.  There  was  never  a  boy  in  our 
town  that  was  content  to  stay  at  home.  It  was  almost 
a  disgrace. 

The  moods  and  tenses  of  the  river  have  their  effects 
on  youth  as  does  all  environment,  but  with  particularly 
healthful  results,  I  believe,  in  the  case  of  the  river. 
The  river  was  alive.  It  touched  our  emotions  and 
awakened  them.  We  lived  in  it  and  upon  it.  We  used 


186      JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

to  go  down  to  its  wharves  in  days  of  storm  and  lie  in 
the  soft  shavings  of  the  ship-yards  and  hear  the  waves 
beat  up  under  the  piers  and  dream  and  sleep,  awaking 
to  hear  the  song  of  the  river,  dreamful,  mystical, 
world-calling.  On  wild  and  rainy  nights  of  high  gales, 
we  would  walk  along  the  river  street  and  as  solitude 
was  my  choice  especially,  I  was  deeply  moved  by  the 
sobbing  of  the  storm  and  the  lashing  of  the  waves,  and 
the  pitiless  night ;  and  often  in  the  deeper  night  when 
all  others  were  abed,  I  have  pressed  my  face  against 
the  rain-washed  pane  and  listened  to  the  roar  of  the 
river  until  day  broke.  Equally  did  we  love  it  in  calm 
summer-days.  It  lay  like  a  mirror,  broken  only  by  the 
leap  of  the  sturgeon  whose  mighty  splashes  have 
awakened  me  on  many  a  summer  Sunday  morning. 
We  fished  in  the  river,  swam  in  it,  learned  to  sail  boats 
on  it,  traded  in  crude  boats  in  boys'  coin — such  craft 
as  punts  and  skiffs,  out  of  which  the  harvest  of  drowned 
boys  was  appalling. 

I  count  it  a  special  dispensation  for  a  boy  to  be  born 
oh  the  shores  of  one  of  our  four  great  Maine  rivers.  It 
is  especially  fortunate  if  he  be  born  where  ships  come 
and  go.  It  is  no  wonder  that  poets  have  likened  the 
river  to  the  river  of  life — small  beginnings,  shoals  and 
rapids  in  its  middle  course;  quieter  broadening  out  at 
the  close,  and  finally  a  gentle  assimilation  into  the  mys- 
tery of  the  shoreless  seas.  The  person  born  and  reared 
where  ships  come  and  go,  gets  something  of  a  new 
faith.  He  counts  no  ship  that  he  saw  launched  and 
sail  away  as  ever  lost.  To  him  they  still  sail  the  seas, 
with  gay  flags  yet  flying — ever  going  and  coming.  So, 
too,  with  friends,  dear  friends,  loved  ones,  who  have 
gone  on  like  the  ships  behind  the  headlands.  The  veil 
is  not  rent,  as  yet,  but  thru  it,  mistily,  we  see  them  as 
with  the  ships,  waving  to  us  over  their  sides,  with 
shining  faces  and  beckoning  hands. 


ON  "THE  FIRST  SKATES" 

UTUMN  passed,  and  now  winter  has  come,  and 
have  you  seen  a  boy  with  a  steeple-topped 
squirrel  trap  or  a  boy  with  a  top  or  a  pair  of 
skates  ?  These  be  degenerate  days.  Neither 
are  there  any  sling-shot  or  marbles — hardly 
any — nowadays. 
They  have  gone,  I  reckon,  and  now  we  find  boys 
passing  their  afternoons  in  the  picture  shows  and 
growing  wise  on  Charlie  Chaplins.  Skates  will  be  the 
last  to  go ;  but  never  will  they  hold  the  place  in  child- 
hood's affections  that  once  they  held.  And  there  is  a 
reason.  They  are  too  common.  Anyone  can  now  have 
a  pair  of  skates  as  fine  and  fast  and  as  securely 
patented  to  the  sole  of  the  shoe  as  tho  they  cost  ten 
times  as  much.  Skates  have  been  democratized. 
Skates  have  become  what  the  automobile  will  have  be- 
come when  everyone  can  have  one — quite  too  full  of 
the  human-brotherhood  idea  to  be  acceptable  to  the 
truly  exclusive.  So  youth  goes  to  the  picture  show  and 
scorns  skates.  Nothing  for  the  modern  lad  short  of  a 
chummy-roadster. 

There  was  a  time,  however,  not  more  than  forty 
years  ago,  when  to  achieve  a  pair  of  first-class  skates 
was  equal  to  extorting  a  Ford  out  of  father.  The  gray- 
haired  reader  has  a  memory,  we  warrant,  of  a  pair  of 
skates  that  once  filled  his  eye  and  he  sees  a  picture  of 
a  small  boy  with  his  cold  nose  pressed  against  a  shop- 
window  in  some  country  town  drinking  in  the  beauties 
of  a  pair  that  stamped  themselves  into  his  youthful 
brain  as  with  a  brand  of  iron,  plucked  but  recently 
from  the  burning.  And  his  dreams,  out  there  in  the 
cold !  All  of  a  lad,  strangely  like  himself  but  somehow 
stronger  and  stouter  grown,  swinging  along  over  the 


188       JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

smooth  ice  of  pond  or  river,  the  steel  singing  at  his 
heels  the  song  of  Mercury,  on  the  four  winds. 

What  do  boys  do,  now,  anyway!  Do  they  build 
snow-forts  as  once  they  did  ?  Do  they  spend  long  days 
and  nights  on  open-ice,  skating  away,  flushed,  strong 
and  happy?  Do  they  work  for  the  wage  that  buys  their 
guns  and  ammunition?  Do  they  go  without  a  single 
thing,  just  by  way  of  learning  humility  and  sacrifice? 
Do  you  remember  the  first  pair  of  skates  you  ever 
owned?  Was  it  not  the  product  of  a  rummage-sale  in 
which  neighboring  junk-piles  and  old-home  sinkspouts 
went  up  the  flue  ?  Were  they  not  of  antique  build  and 
commonly  known  thruout  the  neighborhood?  Were 
they  "rockers?"  Did  they  have  a  toe  that  curled  up 
over  the  foot  and  were  the  tops  ornamented  with  a 
brass  acorn  ?  Did  they  go  on  with  a  screw  into  a  gimlet 
hole,  in  the  heel  of  the  boot ;  and  did  they  ever  stay  on ! 
and  was  the  hole  ever  just  right;  and  could  you  dig  out 
the  snow  and  ice  when  you  got  to  the  pond ;  and  did  the 
straps  ever  hold  and  did  you  know  that  you  had  any 
feet,  after  the  first  ten  minutes  ? 

Oh  well !  Why  repine !  You  had  your  fun.  There 
were  warm,  red-mittened  hands  snugly  tucked  in 
yours ;  and  flowing  curls  of  brown  or  chestnut  to  tickle 
your  nose;  and  red  cheeks  to  look  at  and  a  beating 
heart  to  feel  throbbing  against  yours  as  you  swung 
with  your  first  pair  of  skates  over  the  ice.  They  do 
not  have  any  such  ice  nowadays,  perhaps.  Your 
skates  were  as  good  as  anyone's.  The  first  pair  of  club- 
skates  that  you  ever  saw  were  reputed  to  have  cost  six 
dollars,  and  no  boy  ever  had  six  dollars.  If  he  had  hap- 
pened to  have  that  much,  he  would  have  bought  a 
candy-store.  Thirty  cents  was  a  going  price  for  a 
skatable  article.  But  you  could  do  the  Dutch-roll ;  cut 
curlicues;  do  the  figure  eight  and  grind-bark.  And 
sometimes  you  could  do  them  backward,  when  your 
girl  was  not  looking  on.  Club-skates  marked  the  doom 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES       189 

of  the  boyhood  skating.  When  they  came  down  to  99 
cents  a  pair,  there  was  no  struggle  in  them.  The  mod- 
ern boy  will  now  go  out  and  buy  a  pair  along  with  his 
cigarette  money  and  then  have  his  shoes  tapped  and 
shined.  Dad  is  easy. 

But  still  we  are  glad  we  lived  when  it  was  worth 
while  to  go  skating.  Uncle  Aleck  is  glad,  too.  He  was 
a  famous  skater.  He  says  he  learned  in  the  days  when 
boys  went  barefoot  winters  and  that  he  had  such  hard- 
calloused  heels,  that  he  used  to  bore  a  hole  in  his  bare 
heel  and  screw  the  skate-screw  into  it.  Uncle  Aleck 
could  skate  as  well  as  the  girls  now  skate,  at  Winter- 
garden.  He  was  a  homely  man  on  foot  but  a  god  on 
ice.  I  am  sorry  that  skating  is  no  longer  popular.  It 
tended  to  democracy  of  the  republican  nature.  The 
rich  as  well  as  the  poor  were  likely  to  fall  or  skate  into 
a  hole.  And  that  was  something. 


ON  "THE  SCIENTIFIC  USE  OF  WHISKERS" 

CIENCE,  especially  that  which  is  given  in  the 
woman's  department  of  the  modern  newspa- 
per, is  making  rapid  strides. 

We  notice,  for  instance,  an  article  in  such  a 
column,  this  week,  on  the  scientific  value  of 
whiskers,  which  is  not  so  interesting  to  the 
woman's  department  as  it  is  elsewhere,  because  every 
woman  knows  the  scientific  value  of  whiskers  better 
than  man  knows  it. 

The  Scientist  in  question,  after  talking  about  the 
disappearance  of  whiskers  as  pure  adornment,  once 
popular,  but  now  gone  with  black-walnut  furniture  and 
hanging  lamps,  says  that  the  whisker  was  originally 
intended  as  a  feeler — a  sort  of  telephone  against  run- 


190       JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

ning  into  obstacles.  For  instance,  a  man  with  a  fine 
set  of  bushy  whiskers  could  go  anywhere  in  the  night 
and  by  protruding  his  head  with  his  whiskers,  the 
slightest  obstacle  would  touch  the  end  of  the  feelers 
and  he  would  be  apprised  thereof. 

This  is  really  wonderful!  How  strange  are  the 
ways  of  the  Lord.  Picture  our  early  ancestors,  going 
around  dark  nights,  on  hands  and  knees,  with  their 
whiskers  floating  out,  starboard  and  port,  confident 
that  where  their  whiskers  could  go,  they  could  go  also. 
The  cat  is  the  present  illustration  of  the  case  of  early 
parents.  The  cat  has  never  outgrown  the  necessity 
for  her  whiskers.  The  whiskers  of  the  cat  are  exactly 
as  long  as  the  cat's  head,  and  the  cat's  head  is  exactly 
as  wide  as  the  cat's  body.  Wonderful !  The  whiskers 
protrude  and  wire  back  to  the  gland  in  the  cat's  nose. 
Any  touch  on  the  end  of  the  whisker  reaches  the  brain 
of  the  cat.  So  here  we  have  a  portable  wireless  on  the 
end  of  a  cat's  nose. 

Take  other  adornments  of  animal  nature.  There  is 
a  cow's  tail.  It  is  commonly  and  crudely  supposed  that 
it  was  built  onto  the  end  of  a  cow  for  the  purpose  of 
brushing  away  flies.  But  it  is  not  the  original  use  nor 
the  greater  use.  If  you  have  ever  sat  under  the  star- 
board (or  is  it  port?)  side  of  a  cow  and  been  industri- 
ously extorting  milk  with  all  of  the  lush  freedom  with 
which  a  democratic  congress  gathers  in  the  income  tax 
from  the  non-cotton  growing  states,  and  had  the  cow 
swipe  you  in  the  eye  with  the  more  or  less  unsanitary 
end  of  the  affair,  you  could  believe  anything.  The 
cow's  tail  was  originally  a  pump  handle  for  milking  the 
cow.  There  is  no  doubt  of  that.  It  is  exactly  as  long 
as  a  cow's  tail ;  it  is  exactly  as  wide  as  a  cow's  tail ;  and 
it  is  placed  at  the  south,  or  milk-producing,  end  of  the 
cow.  It  is  simply  atrophied  as  a  pump-handle,  by  non 
use.  I  can  fancy  that  olden  day,  when  your  great,  great, 
great,  etc.,  parent  used  to  go  creeping  thru  the  bushes 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES       191 

at  night  guided  by  a  large  set  of  bushy  red  whiskers 
that  served  as  warmth,  light  and  rudder,  creeping  up 
to  a  real  cow,  with  a  real  tail,  seizing  her  and  pumping 
the  milk.  Those  must  have  been  good  old  days.  No 
wonder  the  milkman  sticks  to  the  pump-handle  even  to 
the  present.  I  suppose  it  is  a  sort  of  survival  of  the 
milkman's  past,  an  avatar  of  that  early  day  when  the 
scenes  aforesaid  occurred  that  even  now  send  the 
milkman  out  to  the  pump  to  yank  her  to  and  fro,  purely 
from  habit. 

Yes,  science  is  making  rapid  strides.  No  longer 
man  grows  a  beard  that  he  may  feel  his  way  around. 
No  longer  the  boy  milks  by  the  familiar  methods  which 
need  no  comment.  We  use  electricity  instead.  But 
the  day  will  never  come  again  when  milking  is  what  it 
used  to  be.  What  sport  it  was  to  go  out  in  the  barn 
early  in  the  morning  and  meet  the  cows.  How  the 
milk  sang  in  the  frosty  pails.  How  the  warm  breath 
of  the  cows  arose  upon  the  air.  Science  has  never 
improved  upon  nature.  And  science  as  found  in  daily 
newspapers  with  its  convictions  on  the  cat's  whiskers 
and  the  whiskers  of  Adam  and  Noah  and  our  early 
fathers,  does  much  substantial  good  in  calling  to  mind 
those  attitudes  of  primogeniture  and  making  us  wise 
to  danger.  For  if  we  persist  in  riding,  we  shall  lose 
the  use  of  legs.  If  we  persist  in  turning  up  our  noses 
at  other  people,  we  shall  lose  our  sense  of  smell.  Un- 
doubtedly we  could  once  flop  our  ears  like  the  mule. 
What  a  loss  today.  Fancy  the  delicate  tone  shadings 
it  gives  to  the  lower  animals.  Picture  an  audience  at 
the  Symphony,  suddenly  throwing  its  ears  forward 
with  a  swoop,  at  the  pianissimo;  erect,  at  the  piano; 
longitudinal,  at  the  forte ;  to  the  rear,  at  the  fortissimo. 
And  then  the  grand  ensemble  of  the  orchestra  with 
every  ear  wagging  back  and  forth,  up  and  down  and 
round  the  circle  according  to  the  sensitive  perceptive- 
ness  of  the  ear.  A  glorious  picture  indeed. 


192       JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

So  as  a  moral :  Don't  give  over  the  regular  and  con- 
servative use  of  the  rudimentary  organs.  Don't  get 
so  lazy  that  you  can't  talk  or  walk  or  smell  or  taste  or 
feel  or  think.  Above  all,  don't  forget  to  think. 


ON  "THE  LIGHT  IN  THE  EAST" 

HE  woman  lay,  waiting  the  dawn  of  day.    It 
was  in  a  handsome  room  in  a  great  house  on  a 
high  hill,  eleven  miles  from  the  nearest  city 
whose  factory  whistles  she  could  often  hear 
and  whose  bells  came  sweet  to  her  ears  some- 
times of  a  still  morning. 
This  day  was  to  be  the  greatest  day  in  all  the  world, 
save  one  or  two,  which  Christians  especially  observe. 

The  woman  had,  as  usual,  passed  a  dreamful  night 
— another  of  those  long  nightmares  of  haunted  memo- 
ries. A  long  stretch  of  blasted  moor  dug  deep  with 
craters,  in  which  stagnant  water  had  gathered,  cov- 
ered with  green  scum  and  floating,  nameless  things! 
A  long  road  stretching  away  into  infinity,  bordered  on 
either  side  by  trees  whose  tops  had  been  torn  away  and 
whose  trunks  were  blackened  and  twisted !  Sometimes 
strange  shapes  flitted  across  them;  moving  armies, 
flights  of  masked  men ;  huge  engines  crawling  like  cat- 
erpillars and  crushing  human  forms  as  they  passed; 
rat-filled  trenches  vomiting  flame;  barbed  wire  and 
death !  Every  night,  by  the  edge  of  one  of  these  holes, 
lay  a  figure  that  filled  her  soul  with  horror  and  made 
her  heart  almost  stand  still ;  a  figure  that  evoked  mem- 
ories of  a  childhood  form  and  of  clinging  baby  arms. 
The  face  eluded  her.  She  had  never  seen  beneath  the 
visor  of  the  iron  helmet.  Sometimes  she  had  not  dared 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES       193 

to  look;  at  other  times  she  must  look  but  could  not. 
All  this  for  eleven  months ! 

The  light  in  the  East  reddened  a  trifle  and  came  in 
at  the  window  and  settled  on  the  floor.  And  then 
something  new  and  effulgent  slowly  rose  along  with  it 
from  the  floor,  slowly  creeping  along  the  wall.  It 
seemed  a  faint,  aurora-like  gleam  as  from  beyond  the 
hills — even  from  eternal  fires  beyond  the  imperial  sun 
itself.  It  spread  like  a  halo  as  if  seeking  some  object 
on  which  to  fasten  itself.  The  woman  stretched  her 
arms  aloft,  her  draperies  falling  from  her,  her  hands 
clasped  as  in  prayer.  And  the  light  slowly  moved  and 
moved  and  gathered  itself  and  shone  with  faint  flush- 
ings as  tho  a  lambent  flame  from  some  moving  taper 
searching  in  the  night. 

And  lo!  From  out  the  dimness  of  the  room,  there 
shone  the  face  of  a  child — the  sweetest  face  ever  pict- 
ured— the  Christ-child  in  the  Madonna's  arms.  On 
this  pictured  face  the  light  settled  and  then  the  picture 
seemed  to  step  forth,  as  tho  borne  with  the  swift, 
soft  step  of  a  mother  carrying  her  babe  thru  danger 
into  safety.  It  filled  the  room!  It  seemed  to  glow 
and  scintillate  and  to  enrich  the  dawn.  It  seemed  to 
the  woman  to  be  both  omen  and  joy.  It  seemed  to  her 
to  be  word  out  of  the  infinite  that,  after  all,  mother- 
hood was  to  be  enthroned  in  the  world  and  the  Babe 
was  to  be  the  symbol  of  a  day  when  the  world  was  to 
be  without  hatred  and  bitterness,  under  the  inspiration 
of  the  new-born  Christ. 

Such  a  dawn!  The  East  was  filled  with  a  glory 
that  seemed  to  presage  strange  and  unusual  things; 
but  it  was  nothing  to  the  glory  that  filled  the  room. 
The  woman's  heart  almost  stopped  beating.  She  lifted 
herself  to  her  knees  and  knelt  in  adoration  before  the 
Madonna  and  the  child.  "It  must  be  a  sign,"  cried  she, 
and  her  voice  rang  strangely  thru  the  silence.  A  sound 
as  of  music  filled  her  ears.  And  the  light  shone 


194   JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

steadily  on  the  vision  of  the  pictured  Madonna — never 
before  materialized  in  this  woman's  life — tho  one  of 
faith. 

And  then,  faint  and  clear  over  the  hills,  came  the 
sound  of  distant  bells  and  the  roar  of  triumphant 
whistles!  The  still  air  of  daybreak  carried  the  story 
of  unusual  things.  She  would  not  believe  what  her 
heart  told  her  was  true.  She  watched  the  vision  in  the 
little  room  instead  and  prayed  and  prayed!  And  still 
the  bells  rang  over  the  hilltops  and  the  whistles  of  the 
distant  town  kept  up  their  sounding.  And  the  light 
slowly  spread  within  the  room  and  caught  the  golden 
frame  of  the  picture  and  picked  up  the  familiar  set- 
tings of  the  chamber  and  its  surroundings  and  swept 
out  to  meet  the  full  day  by  the  western  windows  look- 
ing out  on  high  hills  and  deep  valleys  of  the  November 
landscape. 

And  then  the  faint  tinkling  of  the  telephone  bell 
sounded  at  her  bedside  and  there  was  a  low  voice  over 
the  wire  and  the  single  word  was  "Peace !" 

And  the  woman  fell  back  upon  her  pillow  and  it  was 
wet  with  tears  of  joy.  For  her  boy  yet  lived  and  would 
come  back  to  her ! 


ON  "AFTER  DINNER  SPEAKERS" 

F  I  WERE  going  to  give  advice  to  a  young  man, 
I  should  say,  "Never  become  addicted  to  the 
baleful  habit  of  after-dinner  speaking."  I 
have  seen  men  who,  in  some  rare  moment,  got 
away  with  a  really  good  after-dinner  speech. 
Men  came  to  them  and  said,  "It  was  a  gem." 
They  flushed  with  pleasure.  I  have  seen  them  later  in 
life — no  longer  the  light,  rollicking,  care-free  young 
men,  with  light  blue  eye  and  curling  locks,  but  hunted- 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES       195 

looking,  pale,  anaemic,  bilious,  furtive.  And  as  I  have 
seen  them  later,  also,  up  there  at  the  head  table,  full  of 
pepsin-tablets  and  with  no  taste  for  the  viands,  I  have 
said  to  myself,  "Better  a  happy,  care-free  opium-eater 
than  given  over,  body  and  soul,  to  the  snares  of  this 
fearful  habit  of  after-dinner  oratory." 

I  have  often  fancied  the  fate  of  the  inveterate 
after-dinner  speaker.  A  sword  of  Damocles  hangs 
over  his  head  all  of  the  time,  with  accent  on  the  Dam. 
He  never  knows  when  his  telephone  bell  will  ring  and 
someone  will  call  him  up  and  say  "We  have  booked  you 
for  a  little  speech  after  our  dinner  for  the  collection  of 
peach-stones."  Or  "We  want  you  to  talk  to  our  Neigh- 
borhood Club  at  its  dinner  to  the  ladies.  You  may 
choose  your  own  subject."  He  gulps  a  half -refusal, 
for  he  has  other  business ;  but  the  habit  is  fixed.  The 
awful  thirst  is  in  his  blood.  He  yields  and  again  stag- 
gers to  the  orgie.  His  wife  and  children  see  him  less 
and  less.  He  wanders  about  the  streets  muttering. 
He  seizes  on  futile  stories  and  jokes  that  may  be  useful. 
He  sinks  lower  and  lower  into  the  gutter  of  the  banquet 
table  and  finally  finds  a  grave  in  the  little  yard  outside 
the  nut-factory — "Sacred  to  the  memory  of  John  Doe. 
He  was  a  confirmed  after-dinner  speaker." 

The  idea  that  all  an  after-dinner  speaker  needs  is  a 
dress-suit  and  an  engaging  smile  is  where  the  trouble 
comes.  Some  people — those  who  get  up  banquets — 
seem  to  think  that  after-dinner  oratory  is  pure  spon- 
taneity and  requires  no  effort  but  that  of  joyous 
speech.  Perhaps  it  is  the  fault  of  the  after-dinner 
speaker  that  this  false  notion  obtains.  He  gets  him- 
self up  to  deceive.  He  stands  on  one  foot  and  curves 
the  other  gracefully  around  the  chair  leg  and  tries  to 
pass  himself  off  as  thinking  on  one  foot.  He  stumbles 
along,  emitting  witticisms  that  seem  to  be  drawn  from 
the  occasion.  Somehow  society  seems  to  esteem  the 
speech  that  is  made  without  any  forethought  whatever, 


196       JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

at  a  higher  value  than  the  speech  to  which  an  earnest 
man  had  given  time  and  deep  consideration.  So  the 
after-dinner  speaker  wastes  most  of  his  time  trying  to 
jolly  the  listeners  into  the  notion  that  it  is  spontaneous. 
If  they  only  knew!  Joe  Choate  was  a  great  after- 
dinner  speaker.  But  he  used  to  spend  about  all  of  his 
spare  time  writing  after-dinner  extemporaneous 
speeches. 

A  man  died  in  Detroit  the  other  day  who  had  the 
reputation  of  being  the  readiest  and  wittiest  after-din- 
ner speaker  in  the  middle  west.  His  fame  was  all  over 
the  land.  He  died,  early  (all  after-dinner  speakers  are 
quickly  taken  off),  and  among  his  effects  was  a  card- 
index  of  after-dinner  speeches  for  all  occasions.  He 
had  them  for  lawyers;  for  doctors;  for  dentists;  for 
undertakers ;  for  postmen ;  for  politicians ;  for  automo- 
bilists;  for  rotarians;  for  women's  clubs;  for  hotel- 
men — for  every  possible  combination.  For  instance, 
he  could  combine  a  speech  for  the  undertakers  with  one 
for  the  doctors  (see  cross  references  on  index-cards) 
and  he  could  combine  an  after-dinner  speech  to  lawyers 
with  one  addressed  to  the  "lifers"  in  the  penitentiary. 
That  man  had  system.  And  it  takes  system — a  cast- 
iron  one — to  stand  it.  To  arise  before  a  crowded 
assembly,  all  eating  ice-cream  and  battering  their 
plates  with  their  spoons,  and  talk  thru  the  confusion 
of  waiters  breaking  the  china,  while  a  dryness  clutches 
at  your  throat  and  the  pit  of  your  stomach  is  playing 
"Over  There"  against  your  lumbar  vertebrae,  and  per- 
petrate witticisms  and  slam  around  philosophy  and 
belch  forth  eloquence  and  run  a  hundred-yard  dash  in 
brilliancy  with  a  lot  of  other  equally  misguided  inver- 
tebrates, is  sure  to  require  system  and  then  System. 

I  want,  therefore,  to  plead  with  you,  my  dear  read- 
ers who  sit  back  in  among  the  gilded  throng  that 
attend  the  sacrifice  of  these  noble  martyrs  to  an  Ameri- 
can custom.  You  are  in  the  boxes  of  the  Coliseum  at 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES       197 

Rome.  They  are  the  early  Christians,  flung  to  the 
lions.  You  see  before  you  men  each  one  of  whom  is  on 
his  way  directly  to  trouble.  Every  one  of  them  will 
land  either  in  the  lunatic  asylum  or  in  the  United 
States  Senate  or  in  Congress  or  in  some  other  such 
retreat  for  the  idle  rich.  A  few  reform  and  are  saved. 
Most  of  them  are  in  the  clutch  of  the  maelstrom,  hope- 
lessly lost.  But  whatever  their  fate — be  kind  to  them. 
Be  kind  to  them. 


ON  "WALT  WHITMAN  AND  SOME  OTHERS" 

HIRTY-five  years  ago,  prowling  around  in  what 
was  formerly  the  Peucinian  Library  at  Bow- 
doin  College,  we  fell  on  half  a  dozen  copies  of 
Walt  Whitman's  "Leaves  of  Grass."  It  had 
evidently  been  in  great  demand.  Whitman 
published  his  first  edition  of  the  book  in  1851, 


no  publisher  being  willing  to  take  over  the  contract  and 
Whitman  being  a  printer  and  a  newspaper  man  with 
courage  to  publish  it  himself.  In  July  of  that  year, 
Emerson  wrote  Whitman  the  famous  letter  which  the 
poet  published  by  advice  of  his  friend,  Charles  A.  Dana, 
and  which  brought  such  contumely  and  criticism  on 
Emerson  who  hailed  Whitman  as  a  genius. 

Of  course  you  know  what  was  the  great  pother 
about  the  book.  It  had  too  many  red  corpuscles  in  it. 
As  Vance  Thompson  used  to  say,  there  was  nothing 
"caduque"  about  Whitman;  he  was  all  Man.  He  said 
things  about  the  great  mystery  of  reproduction  that 
looked  not  to  pruriency  but  to  worlds  without  end, 
visions  of  the  earth  teeming  with  races  and  our  duty, 
in  the  prospect.  It  was  a  very  circumspect  age. 
People  used  the  fig-leaf  for  their  emotions  instead  of 


198       JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

using  it  as  a  fan.  The  book  having  been  read  out  of 
meeting,  the  college  boys  were  evidently  stimulated  to 
have  copies  enough  for  general  circulation. 

All  that  has  passed.  We  now  look  to  purpose  alone. 
A  puritanical  politician  in  Washington  kicked  Whitman 
out  of  a  government  job  because  the  politician  happened 
one  day — fourteen  years  after  the  first  edition  ap- 
peared— to  have  just  found  out  that  Whitman  had 
written  "Leaves  of  Grass."  "Dismissed  for  having 
written  an  immoral  book,"  said  he.  If  it  be  immoral, 
so  is  the  Bible.  Its  thought  is  as  pure  as  the  driven 
snow.  All  the  difference  between  Whitman  and  the 
weeping-willow  literature  of  that  period  was  that 
Whitman  did  not  happen  to  be  a  punky  anaemic.  John 
Burroughs  (the  sweetest  thing  in  all  the  world)  loved 
the  "good,  gray  poet"  and  wrote  a  book  of  friendship 
on  him.  The  poet's  life  was  passed  in  chastity,  charity 
and  in  tending  the  sick  in  the  hospitals  of  the  Civil 
War. 

Whitman  was  the  most  glorious  looking  man  who 
ever  lived,  save  the  Man  of  Calvary.  John  Burroughs 
says:  "His  sweet,  aromatic  personality  seemed  to  ex- 
hale sanity,  purity,  naturalness  .  .  .  producing  an 
exaltation  of  mind  and  soul  that  no  man's  presence 
ever  did  before."  He  was  pure  as  his  life  and  his  per- 
son. All  the  trouble  with  him  was — he  recognized  that 
there  are  Men,  Women  and  a  Cosmos.  Whitman  praised 
all  the  virtues  and  hated  the  Carnal  and  the  Mean. 
This  distinction  some  of  his  imitators  have  not  made. 
They  assume  that  because  Whitman  talked  plainly 
about  great  and  pure  thing^f,  they  may  talk  plainly 
about  small  and  nasty  things.  I  have  in  mind  a  book, 
published  by  an  author  in  this  city,  a  man  of  genius 
and  poetical  instinct  who  has  made  this  mistake.  He 
is  thinking  about  individuals,  as  tho  they  were  races 
of  men.  When  Whitman  wrote  of  sexual  things,  it 
was  in  the  way  of  worlds  without  end  and  progress  to 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES       199 

the  ultimate,  never  about  individual  passions,  or  erotic 
diseases. 

Here  is  Whitman's  creed  and  this  is  what  I  am  driv- 
ing at :  "Love  the  earth  and  the  sun  and  the  animals ; 
despise  riches ;  give  alms ;  stand  up  for  the  stupid  and 
crazy;  devote  your  income  and  labor  to  others;  hate 
tyrants;  argue  not  concerning  God;  have  patience; 
take  off  your  hat  to  nothing,  known  or  unknown,  or  to 
any  number  of  men;  go  freely  with  powerful,  unedu- 
cated persons  and  with  the  young  and  with  the  mothers 
of  families ;  re-examine  all  you  have  been  told  in  church 
or  in  school  or  in  any  book ;  dismiss  anything  that  in- 
sults your  own  soul;  and  your  very  flesh  shall  be  a 
great  poem  and  have  the  richest  fluency,  not  only  in  the 
silent  lines  of  the  lip  and  face  but  between  the  lashes 
of  your  eyes  and  in  every  joint  of  your  body."  "I  have 
no  chair,  no  church,  no  philosophy,"  adds  he.  "I  lead 
no  man  to  a  dinner-table,  library  or  exchange,  but  each 
man  and  each  woman  of  you,  I  lead  upon  a  knoll,  my 
left  hand  hooking  you  around  the  waist,  my  right  hand 
pointing  to  the  landscapes  of  continents  and  the  public 
road.  Nor  I,  nor  anyone  else,  can  travel  that  road  for 
you,  you  must  travel  it  by  yourself.  It  is  not  far,  it  is 
within  reach,  perhaps  you  have  been  on  it  since  you 
were  born  and  did  not  know,  perhaps  it  is  everywhere 
on  water  and  on  land." 


ON  "THE  FIRST  SNOW  STORM" 

OST  of  us  have  somewhere  in  the  back  of  our 
mind,  a  dream  of  snug  retreat  in  some  farm- 
house in  the  country,  high  on  a  hill ;  with  the 
snow  blowing  around  it ;  with  much  music  of 
wailing  wind  and  with  big  flakes  spattering 
the  windows.  We  seem  to  hear  the  kettle 
singing  in  the  kitchen,  and  mother  humming  arounc^ 
the  stoye  with  the  indefatigable  quickstep  of  the  busy 
housewife. 

The  little  boy  who  seems  to  be  a  very  small  edition 
of  yourself,  presses  his  face  against  the  clear  places  in 
the  pane  and  looks  out  on  a  world,  all  shrouded  with  a 
thick  veil  of  enormous  flakes  that  come  sailing  down 
criss-cross.  He  can  just  see  the  barn-door  and  the 
pump  in  the  barnyard  and  the  big  elm  in  the  intervale 
and  the  henhouse,  where  he  keeps  his  pullets,  but  he 
cannot  see  the  schoolhouse,  a  half  a  mile  away,  because 
the  snow  is  coming  down  so  fast.  It  is  funny,  the 
things  the  first  snow  does.  It  builds  little  pyramids  on 
the  wood  pile  and  on  the  blue  knob,  on  top  of  the  pump. 
It  attaches  itself  to  the  nails  in  the  barn-door,  in  such 
way  that  little  round  knobs  stick  out  all  over  it,  like  a 
fifer's  eyeball.  It  decorates  the  chimney  top  and 
sticks  to  the  north  side  of  the  chimney  in  fantastic 
way.  It  sticks  to  father,  out  there  doing  the  chores. 
When  he  comes  in  he  stomps  tremendously  with  his 
cowhides  and  mother  gets  a  broom  to  brush  him.  And 
the  little  boy  goes  to  the  door  and  pokes  out  his  head 
and  looks  up  into  the  sky  and  sees — nothing  but  snow- 
flakes. 

I  will  bet  that  there  is  not  a  person  of  mature  years 
who  has  not  frequently  recurring  memories  of  the  first 
snow  of  years  long  since  passed  away.  He  hears  it 
ticking  away  against  the  windows ;  he  hears  it  singing 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES       201 

of  coming  winter  in  the  chimney ;  he  thinks  reluctantly, 
for  its  very  sadness,  of  the  chimney-corner  and  those 
that  sat  about  it.  It  must  have  been  its  beauty,  that 
unconsciously  impressed  itself  upon  him  and  made 
memory  as  long  as  life  lasts.  For  there  is  nothing  like 
beauty  to  stamp  a  thing  into  childhood  memory. 
Beauty  and  variety !  For  it  also  brought  a  new  as  well 
as  beautiful  world  to  young  eyes.  A  world  of  meadows 
and  fields  obliterated,  a  world  of  running  brooks  swept 
away.  In  place  of  these  came  a  world  of  still,  white, 
measureless  snow.  No  wonder  it  endures  in  our  lives 
with  singular  pertinacity. 

And  the  big  snow  storms!  Those  old-fashioned 
snow-falls  that  just  happened  before  we  invented  the 
word  "blizzard."  Snow  storms  that  were  no  interrup- 
tion to  traffic,  because  there  was  no  traffic.  Snow 
storms  that  over-rode  the  fence  tops,  hid  the  apple 
trees,  buried  the  hen-coop  and  the  pig-pen;  filled  the 
road  even  with  the  stone  walls  on  either  side.  Snow 
storms  so  big  that  even  the  darned  (I  use  the  word  rev- 
erently) old  school  teacher  couldn't  get  to  school.  But 
you  could!  And  you  plowed,  neck-deep,  through  it 
and  found  him  there  and  you  and  he  were  the  only 
scholars  and  you  did  not  have  a  thing  to  do  but  live  in 
warm  and  tenderly  affectionate  intimacy  with  him  and 
found  new  and  unexpected  phases  of  his  character  that 
made  you  believe  that  after  all  he  was  human.  Snow 
storms  so  big  that  no  breaking-out  teams  passed  for 
days.  Snow  storms  so  big  that  father  stayed  in  the 
house  and  mother  made  mincemeat.  Snow  storms  so 
big  that,  when  the  winds  blew,  they  took  the  tops  off  the 
drifts  and  again  made  the  roads  impassable  and  there 
was  no  school  for  three  days  and  you  stayed  in  and  read 
"Robinson  Crusoe." 

I  reckon  that  there  will  be  snow  in  Heaven.  It  is 
too  beautiful  not  to  be  there.  How  pretty  it  will  look 
on  the  golden  streets !  Nothing  but  perfection  is  to  be 


202       JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

found  in  the  snowflakes.  They  are  all  perfectly  cut 
jewels  of  crystal,  finer  in  mathematical  accuracy  than 
lapidaries  can  make.  Thoreau  says  "Snowflakes  are 
the  wheels  of  the  storm-chariots,  the  wreck  of  chariot- 
wheels  after  a  battle  in  the  skies.  These  glorious 
spangles,  the  sweeping  of  Heaven's  floor.  So  there 
must  be  snow,  up  there.  And  they  all  sing  in  the 
measure  of  the  hexagon,  six,  six,  six." 

The  first  snow  teaches  also  transmutation  of  earth 
into  heaven.  "God  takes  the  water  of  the  sea  in  His 
hand,"  again  says  Thoreau,  "leaving  the  salt;  He  dis- 
perses it  in  mist ;  He  re-collects  it  and  again  sprinkles  it 
like  grain  in  six-rayed  stars  of  snow  over  the  earth, 
there  to  lie  till  it  dissolves  its  bonds  again."  Is  not 
that  like  the  Lord's  handling  of  human  souls?  He 
takes  them  in  His  hand;  leaving  the  earthy.  He  car- 
ries them  to  the  skies.  He  re-collects  them  there  and 
again  distributes  them  over  the  earth,  there  to  live 
until  they  again  dissolve  their  bonds,  to  return  again 
to  Heaven  and  to  a  new  earth. 


ON  "MAKE  YOUR  LIFE  A  LIVING  SPRING" 

F  YOU  can  keep  your  mind  from  running 
adrift,  you  do  a  good  work.  Every  now  and 
then  some  foolish  lad  kills  himself  because  he 
is  jilted  by  a  girl — as  tho  he  could  not  live 
without  her  when  girls  are  girls  and  there 
are  just  as  sweet  ones,  perhaps,  as  she  who 

knows  better  than  he  that  two  cannot  be  happy  together 

where  two  do  not  love. 

Keep  your  mind  from  becoming  morbid  over  certain 

things  you  think  you  desire  and  without  which  you 

think   life    insupportable.    Material    things    are   not 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES       203 

essential.  "Do  men  curse  you  ?"  says  Marcus  Aurelius. 
"Do  they  threaten  to  kill  and  quarter  you?  How  can 
this  prevent  YOU  from  keeping  your  mind  temperate 
and  just?  It  is  much  as  tho  a  man  that  stands  by  the 
side  of  a  pure  and  lovely  spring  should  fall  a-railing 
at  it.  The  water  never  ceases  bubbling  up  for  all  of 
that.  And  if  you  should  throw  clay  and  dirt  in  it,  it 
would  disappear  and  disperse  and  the  fountain  would 
not  be  polluted.  Which  way  now  are  you  to  go  to  work 
to  keep  your  springs  always  running  that  they  may 
never  stagnate  into  a  pool  ?  I  will  tell  you ;  you  must 
always  preserve  in  you  the  virtues  of  freedom,  sin- 
cerity, sobriety  and  good  nature." 

What  I  want  to  bring  to  the  surface  in  that  wonder- 
ful sentiment  of  the  Pagan  philosopher  who  was  wiser 
than  almost  any  other  man  who  has  lived,  is  this:  do 
not  let  the  fountain  of  your  life  become  a  pool. 

That  is  what  happens  when  the  young  man  takes 
his  life  for  such  silly  reasons.  That  is  what  happens 
when  a  man  becomes  half-crazy  in  his  rage  against 
another.  That  is  what  happens  when  a  man  goes 
around  fancying  suspicion  against  his  best  friends. 
That  is  what  happens  when  a  man  becomes  insanely 
jealous.  That  is  what  happens  when  a  man  be- 
comes discouraged,  to  the  point  of  quitting  all  effort. 
That  is  what  happens  when  a  man  ceases  to  be 
happy  at  life.  The  pool  is  an  evil  thing  in  the  woods — 
for  instance.  It  is  covered  with  scum  and  peopled  by 
monsters  and  rife  with  disease.  Try,  by  the  virtues 
indicated  by  Marcus  Aurelius,  to  have  your  life  a  foun- 
tain, bubbling  away  clear  and  sweet,  rippling  and 
sparkling;  full  of  sweetness  and  life-sustaining  quali- 
ties. It  sweetens  not  only  the  surrounding  pathways 
but  all  of  the  lands  thru  which  its  waters  flow.  It  runs 
away  merrily  and  men  and  women  bless  its  outflow. 
In  all  times  we  have  idealized  the  spring.  I  like  the 
French  word  "Source"  as  a  synonym  of  spring. 


204       JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

Chaucer  never  called  it  anything  but  the  "Source." 

And  is  it  not  so  ?  Life — your  life  should  be  like  the 
spring — not  like  the  pool.  Something  giving  out — not 
standing  still  and  waiting  for  something  to  fall  into  it. 
It  may  be  that  you  shall  get  some  rain  and  some  sweet- 
ness in  such  a  pool,  but  for  the  most  part  it  will  be 
slime,  blackness,  evil  thoughts,  dark  clouds  and  snaky 
things. 

Any  man  or  woman  can  make  of  life  a  bubbling 
fountain — if  he  will.  All  lives  are  capable  of  it.  The 
old  philosopher  has  given  the  recipe,  freedom,  sincer- 
ity, sobriety  and  good  nature.  Freedom  is  the  biggest 
word  in  the  four  and  it  comprehends  all  that  makes  a 
man  wise  and  liberal.  It  contains  within  its  signifi- 
cance, disentanglement  from  the  slavery  of  selfishness, 
of  greed,  of  lust,  of  mean  ambitions,  of  sins  and  mean- 
nesses. Following  this,  comes  the  necessity  of  doing 
this  with  sincerity — believing,  believing,  believing,  be- 
lieving. And  the  sobriety  which  suggests  conserva- 
tism of  beauty.  And  finally  good  nature — blessed 
radiance  of  some  lives  whose  rich  flower  is  in  human 
hearts  aching  after  they  have  passed  away. 

If  there  is  any  one  of  you  who  will  determine  to 
make  his  life  a  bubbling  spring  rather  than  a  pool — 
please  stand  up  now  and  say  so.  It  is  needed — your 
testimony  in  these  days,  especially. 


ON  "GREETINGS  TO  SCHOOL  CHILDREN" 


REETINGS  and  a  word,  on  the  way,  to  that 
army  of  school  children  of  America,  march- 
ing, after  the  long  summer  vacation  in  the 
year  of  1918,  along  the  old-accustomed  paths 
to  school. 

You,  alone  of  all  armies,  retain  your  full 
quota.  All  others  are  torn  either  by  enlistment  or  by 
shot  and  shell.  Your  fathers,  your  brothers,  your  sis- 
ters, your  mothers,  are  "over  there."  You  are  proud 
of  them  and  sometimes  in  fancy,  can  see  them  thru  the 
smoke  and  dust.  You  expect  them  to  do  their  duty. 
Have  you  thought  that  they  expect  YOU  to  do  yours  ? 
How  are  you  going  to  do  it?  What  sort  of  duty  is 
yours  to  do? 

Let  us  think  it  over.  The  first  thing  a  sol- 
dier learns  is  discipline.  It  is  sometimes  spelled 
"o-b-e-d-i-e-n-c-e."  Disobedience  in  the  army  is  a 
shame  and  a  disgrace.  In  extreme  cases  it  is  punished 
by  death ;  in  lesser  cases,  by  hardships  almost  as  bad 
as  death. 

The  second  thing  he  learns  is  courtesy.  The  good 
soldier  carries  himself  like  a  gentleman.  He  is  obliged 
to  speak  politely  to  his  superiors  in  rank.  By  this 
means  he  comes  to  speak  politely  to  his  comrades. 
Courtesies  sweeten  the  soldier's  life.  They  smooth 
the  army  work.  They  lessen  the  burdens  in  hospital 
and  camp  for  our  sisters  and  our  mothers  who  are 
"over  there." 

The  third  big  thing  the  soldier  learns  is  neatness. 
He  can't  be  a  soldier  and  be  anything  but  clean  in  attire 
and  equipment.  And  when  he  is  neat  and  clean,  he 
thinks  better  of  himself. 

Other  big  things  that  come  to  him  are  pride  of  the 
company,  the  regiment,  the  soldier's  pride  of  courage, 


206       JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

victory,  honor,  truth,  love  of  country.  He  finds  his 
very  soul  in  the  army.  He  finds  HIMSELF  also — 
prompt,  able,  courteous,  honest,  dutiful. 

You — scholars  of  America — must  emulate  the  sol- 
dierly discipline  of  the  Armies  of  America.  You  are 
the  greatest  and  best  army  that  we  have  left  at  home. 
You  must  be  courteous.  You  must  be  obedient,  you 
must  be  clean  and  neat ;  you  must  work  faithfully — as 
never  before.  This  is  no  common  year.  Everything 
is  different — school  has  greater  meaning  as  has  every- 
thing else  in  life.  You  must  remember  that  this  war 
is  being  fought  largely  for  you.  Most  of  us  will  be 
gone  before  its  full  benefits  can  possibly  come.  YOU 
will  be  alive  and  will  enjoy  them. 

It  is  a  fine  army — this  that  sets  out  for  school  under 
the  peaceful  elms.  How  different  from  that  huddled, 
flame  scorched  army  of  boys  and  girls  of  Belgium  and 
Northern  France  wearing  gas-masks,  fleeing  between 
the  screeching  shells  to  some  underground  refuge 
where  they  study,  to  the  thunder  of  great  guns  and  the 
roar  of  explosions.  If  you  have  any  sense  of  gratitude 
to  those  who  are  dying  for  you  over  there,  can  you  fail 
to  appreciate  your  opportunities  this  year,  of  all  years  ? 
Can  you  afford  to  be  thoughtless  or  inefficient,  dis- 
obedient or  discourteous?  Does  not  the  vision  of  the 
great  war  make  you  more  proud  of  your  American 
birth  and  lineage  ?  Does  not  the  picture  of  those  other 
school-children  in  lands  of  war,  make  you  better  appre- 
ciate what  you  enjoy  here?  And  will  you  remember 
now,  hour  by  hour,  that  what  the  "boys"  are  fighting 
for,  is  the  right  for  you  to  walk  in  peace  along  these 
quiet  streets  to  a  clean  and  well-ordered  free  school  in 
a  free  land. 

And,  boys  and  girls !  If  you  could  only  know  how 
large  a  part  in  all  teaching  depends  on  YOU.  I  know 
that  you  would  be  as  good  soldiers  here  as  those  older 
boys  and  girls  are,  wherever  they  may  be.  You  would 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES       207 

begin  with  obedience ;  in  all  things,  courteous ;  glorying 
in  the  spirit  of  the  army  of  Freedom  and  Truth ;  honest 
to  your  school  and  yourself;  proud  of  its  victories; 
appreciative  of  the  service  that  those  who  are  dying  to 
make  men  free,  are  giving  you  in  pain  and  sacrifice  as 
you  walk  your  way  to  and  from  your  schools. 


ON  "THE  OLD-TIME  BOY-SHOP' 

ROBABLY  there  was  a  little  old-fashioned  boy- 
shop  in  your  old-home  town,  that  you  still 
recall  with  certain  recollections  of  foudness. 

Brack  Andros  kept  the  one  that  I  recall,  in 
a  Maine  village  where  I  was  born.  He  was  a 
very  tall,  saturnine  man  with  a  tremen- 
dously black  beard,  unquestionably  dyed.  He  had  a 
most  forbidding  manner  and  a  reputed  kindly  heart. 
His  store  was  up  a  flight  of  wooden  stairs,  very  long  and 
narrow,  not  at  all  made  for  lounging.  His  door,  when 
opened,  rang  a  bell  that  tinkled  on  silence  and,  in  sum- 
mer, seemed  to  rouse  the  blue-bottled  flies  that  kept 
house  in  the  one  window  of  the  shop. 

Brack  (his  full  name  was  Brackett)  was  a  store- 
keeper, a  photographer  and  a  cobbler.  He  wore  a  black 
glazed-cap  that  made  him  altogether  more  funereal  and 
Mephistophelian  than  otherwise.  He  never  smiled.  He 
never  sang  or  whistled ;  but  he  had  the  faculty  of  hav- 
ing boys  around  him  all  of  the  time,  sitting  around  his 
shoemaker's  bench  or  watching  him  when  he  disap- 
peared into  the  mysteries  of  his  photographic  room, 
into  which  no  boy  ever  entered. 

Brack  kept  peg-tops,  needles,  spools,  paper-soldiers, 
cassia-buds,  sticks  of  striped  candies,  enduring  and 
saccharine  gooseberries,  elastic  for  sling-shots,  slates, 
multiplication  tables,  paint-boxes,  knuckle-bones,  jack- 


208      JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

stones,  and  certain  confections  whose  names  you  would 
not  know  in  these  days  if  you  were  told.  He  never 
gave  you  a  welcome  or  called  you  "sonny,"  or  anything 
but  "young  man,"  in  a  deep  bass.  After  he  came  to 
know  you,  he  addressed  you  by  your  surname.  For  in- 
stance, if  your  name  were  Johnnie  Bibber,  he  always 
called  you  "Bibber"  and  you  called  him  "Mister 
Andros"  as  long  as  you  lived.  If  you  called  him 
"Brack"  just  out  of  deviltry,  you  knew  it  meant  a  dose 
of  "strap-oil"  delivered  with  the  shoe-maker's  strap, 
that  went  over  his  knee.  Most  boys  like  a  hiding  for 
fun.  Brack  delivered  it. 

"Shut  the  door,  young  man,"  said  Brack  when  you 
entered  and  then,  "Report,  blast  ye,  report,"  and  you 
must  face  Mr.  Andros  and  salute,  saying  "Good  mornin', 
Mister  Andros !  All  right  in  limb,  wind  and  whizzle." 
If  you  failed,  "Whizz !"  went  the  whistling  strap.  This 
shows  that  Mr.  Andros  knew  boys  and  how  to  keep 
their  trade.  When  he  was  very  playful,  he  would  go 
into  the  dark-room  and  emerge  with  a  finger  well 
daubed  with  nitrate  of  silver  of  safe  solution  with 
which  he  would  streak  your  face,  later  to  turn  indelibly 
black  and  leave  you  proudly  looking  like  an  Indian. 

He  used  to  sell  cassia-buds  at  five  cents  a  pill-box, 
full.  The  pill-box  was  worn  off  at  one  side  so  that  it 
did  not  hold  so  many  as  it  looked.  What  would  you 
not  give  for  the  tang  of  the  cassia-bud  in  the  little  bul- 
let-like, heart-shaped  pellicles.  You  could  not  get  it 
now  if  you  had  a  ton  of  them.  Brack  knew.  He  knew 
the  season  for  every  game.  When  he  put  a  set  of 
"glassers"  in  the  window,  the  mud  dried  up  immedi- 
ately in  the  school-house  yard.  He  knew  when  to  put  tops 
in  the  window.  He  appointed  St.  Valentine's  day,  we 
firmly  believed.  His  best  line  was  the  old-fashioned 
"comics."  Some  old  maid  stores  were  above  comics. 
They  were  brutal  things.  But  Brack  sold  them 
because  boys  wanted  them.  He  would  stand  and  sell 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES       209 

comics  while  a  whole  family  waited  for  an  ambro- 
type.  Some  of  his  pictures  will  live  forever;  fair 
looking  men  in  velvet  vests  and  with  mighty  beards. 

Long  ago,  Brackett  Andros  joined  his  fathers.  The 
little  old  shop  is  gone.  Most  of  them  are  gone  every- 
where. Boys  are  no  longer  interested  in  one-cent 
goods.  But  something  surely  has  gone  with  it. 
Brack's  steps  were  worn  by  children's  feet.  Men 
grown  to  dignity  of  years  never  came  back  to  the  little 
town  but  to  open  the  door ;  hear  the  shuffling  feet ;  see 
the  same  old  black,  glazed  cap  and  hear  from  beneath 
the  spectacles,  hiding  twinkling  eyes,  the  old,  old 
words,  "Report,  Blast  ye  1"  and  himself  to  stiffen  into 
erectness  and  saluting  to  the  eyebrow,  ring  forth: 
"Good  mornin',  Mister  Andros ;  all  right,  limb,  wind  and 
whizzle." 

Will  he  be  there,  where  all  shall  meet?  And  shall 
we  hear  the  same  old  salutation  and  be  able  to  answer 
truthfully  as  of  old? 


ON  "BREAKING  OF  DROUTHS" 

OU  like  a  rainy  day  better  than  you  like  two  or 
three  rainy  days,  don't  you  ?  But  in  spite  of 
your  weariness  at  the  rainy  season  of  June 
and  July,  1918,  you  recall  certain  days  and 
nights  when  the  rain  was  music  to  your 
ears,  coolness  to  your  brow  and  healing  to 
your  soul. 

Do  you  remember  anything  like  this  ?  A  long  spell 
of  blazing  sun  of  midsummer;  parched  earth,  brown  and 
dusty;  heat-waves  rising  over  the  fields;  no  water  in 
the  pastures  for  the  stock.  Then  came  a  day  when  the 
poplar-leaves  turned  up  white  in  the  trees  near  the 


210   JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

garden  fence  and  seemed  to  be  shivering  all  over ;  and 
the  winds  sort  of  moaned,  eerie-like,  around  the  cor- 
ners of  the  house ;  and  the  hens  preened  their  feathers. 
And  the  next  day  the  mists  seemed  to  come  up  over  the 
fields  and  the  men  sat  in  the  barn-door  and  looked  at 
the  weather  vane  and  wondered  if  it  would  be  wise  to 
get  any  more  hay  down,  and  then  all  of  a  sudden  you 
heard  a  sound  like  the  tinkling  of  silver  coin  on  the 
roof  and  then  a  whispered  lullaby  as  of  myriad  voices 
singing  a  world  to  sleep;  and  then  the  steady  fall  of 
the  rain.  And  don't  you  remember  the  men,  sitting  in 
the  doorway,  with  the  rain  slanting  down  across  it,  and 
up  in  a  cosy  bed  in  the  hay,  a  small  boy  listening  to  the 
rain  on  the  roof  and  dreaming  big  dreams?  The 
drouth  had  broken. 

Have  you  ever  come  into  camp  or  tavern  at  night 
after  a  hard  day  in  the  rain  or  snow  and  after  warm 
supper  and  change  of  clothes  and  a  pipe,  crawled  into 
bed  to  hear  the  waves  on  the  beach,  or  the  sleet  on  the 
roof,  or  the  tree  swishing  against  the  logs  outside  and 
withal,  the  firelight  in  the  open  fire-place  leaping  to  the 
storm? 

Did  you  ever  see  the  breaking  of  the  storm;  the 
lessening  of  the  down-fall;  the  rolling  back  of  the 
hordes  of  the  sky;  the  lightening  of  the  gloom;  the 
silencing  of  the  heavy  artillery  of  the  tempest;  the 
coming  of  the  blue  beneath  the  flying  scud ;  and  at  last, 
the  sun;  ultimately,  the  stars  in  all  their  glory? 

You  have.  Would  you  exchange  it  for  never-ending 
sunshine,  a  succession  of  days  with  never  a  cloud? 
Would  you  prefer  a  world  without  any  turmoil,  without 
storm  or  snow  or  sleet  or  rain?  Do  you  suppose  that 
it  ever  rains  when  it  is  not  needed  for  the  general  plan 
of  life,  to  water  and  enrich  the  earth,  to  bring  the  dust- 
germs  to  the  soil,  to  reduce  nitrogens  and  gases  of 
other  kinds,  to  give  a  bath  to  nature  where  she 
need^  it? 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES       211 

So  do  not  fret  when  it  rains  on  your  new  straw  hat. 
Don't  grumble  if  it  rains  a  week  to  the  defeat  of  your 
vacation.  Think  of  the  brooks  that  now  begin  to  run 
to  the  sea;  of  the  meadows,  lush  with  upstanding 
grasses ;  of  how  even  in  the  city  streets,  when  the  rain 
swept  down  the  canyons  of  the  tall  buildings  and  the 
gutters  gurgled,  they  were  carrying  away  the  corrup- 
tion of  a  world.  And  if  you  can  find  no  other  analogy, 
find  it  in  the  washing  away  of  evil  things  in  the  storm, 
even  in  the  storm  of  the  World  on  the  Western  Front. 
Maybe  after  all,  the  world  is  destined  to  profit  also  by 
storms  of  war  and  that  they  are  essential  to  advance- 
ment. Surely  this  war  is  bound  to  do  some  good,  with 
all  its  evil,  all  its  suffering.  Do  we  not  hope  and  believe 
that  it  will  refresh  our  ideals  and  cause  them  to  lift 
their  heads  like  withered  grasses  when  the  drouth 
has  broken?  Do  we  not  believe  that  it  will  spur  on 
growth  and  bring  new  things  to  flower  as  even  does 
the  rain  ? 

And  if  the  wind  comes  round  right  and  stands  in 
the  point  of  compass  called  God's  justice,  the  day  will 
be  long  and  full  of  peace  under  blue  skies  and  soft  and 
tender  airs,  piping  of  peace. 


ON  "OWNING  HALF  OF  A  HORSE" 

NCE  upon  a  time  I  owned  half  of  a  horse.  It 
was  when  I  was  a  young  reporter  on  the 
newspaper  and  roomed  with  a  young  man 
with  far  more  knowledge  of  a  horse  than  I 
had — and  that  was  not  saying  much  for  him, 
either.  Personally,  I  hardly  knew  which  end 
of  a  horse  went  into  a  stall  first  and  I  could  not  have 
harnessed  a  horse,  if  I  were  to  have  died  for  not 
doing  it. 


212       JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

This  particular  horse  was  a  descendant  of  a  rather 
well-known  Maine  racer  named  Gideon  which  was,  if  I 
remember  aright,  a  son  or  a  grandson  of  the  great 
Hambletonian.  She  was  a  gray  and  high-headed  mare 
and  full  of  action.  We  called  her  "Notala,"  for  two 
reasons — one  because  we  owed  for  most  of  her  on  a 
note,  and  second,  because  she  had  no  tail,  or  rather,  a 
docked  tail.  We  used  to  ride  some  evenings  with  her 
and  my  friend  who  was  very  successful  in  society,  used 
her  to  take  his  various  girls  out  riding.  I  sort  of 
changed  the  name  of  my  half  of  the  horse  to  "No- 
teller."  Once  or  twice  a  week  I  used  to  get  permission 
to  take  my  half  of  the  horse  out,  and  we  used  to  lie 
awake  far  into  the  night  discussing  which  half  he 
owned  and  which  half  I  owned.  We  always  agreed, 
however,  which  half  of  the  note  each  of  us  owed.  I 
always  owed  the  half  that  was  coming  due  first. 

Along  about  the  latter  part  of  August  we  discovered 
that  the  mare  had  speed.  A  couple  of  boys  can  usually 
find  speed  in  a  horse  kept  at  a  livery  stable,  on  oats,  as 
was  ours.  We  took  on  about  everything  that  we  met 
on  the  road  and  as  September  came  in,  we  trimmed 
some  horses  on  the  way  to  fairs.  The  mare  had  speed 
— no  doubt  about  it  and  it  was  up  to  us  to  find  out  how 
much  speed  she  had,  for  those  were  the  days  when 
speed  in  a  brood  mare  was  valuable,  and  our  mare  was 
young  and  well  bred.  Then,  too,  State  Fair  sort  of 
imbued  us  with  notions  about  speed  and  hoss-flesh ;  for 
we  loafed  around  the  horse  stalls  a  bit. 

After  the  Fair  was  over,  we  got  permission  to  go  up 
to  the  track  and  try  out  our  mare  for  extreme  speed. 
We  got  a  light  wagon  and  cut  out  all  of  the  accessories 
such  as  extra  tires  and  hitching-weights,  and  borrow- 
ing a  split-second  stop-watch,  went  to  the  track  early 
in  the  morning  before  any  of  the  rail-birds  could 
"clock"  our  mare  as  she  did  the  turns.  My  room-mate 
was  to  drive  and  I  was  to  hold  the  watch  on  him.  He 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES       213 

scored  once  or  twice  by  way  of  warming-up  as  we  had 
seen  the  jockeys  do,  and  finally  we  let  her  go  and  I  held 
the  watch.  De-lighted!  No  name  for  it!  Think  of 
it!  Only  2.2114!  Remarkable.  Again  we  put  the 
mare  to  it  and  this  time  I  roared  down  the  dawn,  "Mile 
in  2  min.  19  sec.  We  have  got  a  world-beater." 

We  said  nothing ;  but  we  had  a  friend  who  wanted  a 
fast  horse.  He  had  plenty  of  money  and  had  never 
owned  a  horse.  He  knew  as  much  about  horses  as  we 
did — no  more.  He  was  a  college  professor.  We  wrote 
him  about  the  mare  and  he  came  on  to  see  her.  He 
liked  her.  We  went  up  to  the  track — we  three — and 
tried  the  mare  again.  Again  she  did  the  trick  around 
2.20.  He  wanted  her.  We  sold  her  at  a  nice  profit, 
paid  our  notes  and  were  supremely  sad  and  supremely 
satisfied. 

Time  passed.  Along  about  December  we  were  vis- 
ited by  a  man  who  looked  like  a  horse-man.  He  said 
that  he  had  been  training  a  gray  mare  belonging  to  a 
certain  man — naming  our  friend — and  he  understood 
that  he  had  bought  the  mare  of  us. 

We  said  "yes,  that  was  the  fact."  The  man  looked 
us  over  shrewdly  and  seemed  satisfied.  "The  mare  is 
bred  as  you  say,"  said  he  with  a  rising  inflection.  "She 
certainly  is,"  said  we.  "And  she  had  speed  when  you 
sold  her?"  "She  DID !"  shouted  we.  "You  know  what 
she  did  on  the  track  to  a  wagon?"  "Ye-e-s,"  said  the 
man.  "And  the  man  was  there  when  he  bought  her 
and  saw  her  do  it,"  said  I.  "Two-twenty,  easy." 

"Funny,"  said  the  man,  "I  have  been  driving  that 
mare  to  the  snow  and  there  ain't  a  four-minute  horse 
in  Chelsea  that  can't  beat  her.  I  have  been  giving  her 
my  best  attention  and  I  can't  get  her  to  go  at  all.  I've 
shod  and  booted  her  and  she  can't  go.  Somethin'  must 
a'  happened  to  her  or  else  I  ain't  no  driver.  You  drove 
her  a  mile  in  two-twenty?  And  the  buyer  saw  it?" 
'Yes,"  echoed  we.  "Where  was  it?"  said  the  man, 


214       JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

sort  of  helplessly.  "On  the  Maine  State  Fair  track." 
"Mile  track?"  said  the  man,  sort  of  for  lack  of  any- 
thing else  to  say.  "No-o-o,"  said  one  of  us.  "Half- 
mile  track;  hanged  if  I  know!  None  of  us  ever 
thought."  "How  many  times  around  did  you  go?" 
shouted  the  man.  "Once,"  said  we. 

I  have  always  said  that  two  innocent  fools,  each 
owning  half  a  hoss,  can  sell  to  good  advantage  if  they 
can  get  a  man  for  a  buyer  who  is  equally  innocent. 
"Boys,"  saicj  the  man  as  he  went  away,  "it's  all  right. 
I  can  sell  the  mare  for  a  driver ;  but  she  ain't  no  speed- 
hoss  and  if  ever  I  do  want  to  sell  another  hoss  for 
speed,  I'll  send  him  to  you."  And  that  was  the  end  of 
my  end  of  a  horse. 


ON  "JUSTICE  AS  A  SOLVENT" 

E  HEAR  a  good  deal  about  a  middle  ground  of 
unity  between  the  warring  "classes"  of  earth. 
But  what  are  classes?  Are  men  and  women 
to  be  classified  because  one  man  has  been 
frugal,  thrifty,  careful  of  his  health,  and  self- 
educated  as  against  the  man  who  has  chosen 
to  do  nothing  all  thru  life  but  follow  his  passions,  his 
lusts,  his  idleness,  all  of  the  while  grumbling  at  the  man 
who  has  gone  ahead  in  service  and  in  accumulation? 
Does  a  million  of  the  improvident,  constitute  a  class 
against  a  million  of  the  provident  ? 

Oppression  is  what  we  should  get  after  in  this 
world — and  we  should  get  after  it  by  administration  of 
every  agency  that  will  obliterate  it.  It  is  a  sly  fox  and 
should  be  chased  to  its  hole  and  there  drowned  out. 
Special  privileges  are  the  mice  that  burrow  into  the 
comfort  of  a  million  homes.  Wrongful  segregation  of 
the  common  utilities  of  life  should  be  hunted  down  and 
made  to  stop. 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES       215 

When  the  public  speaker,  therefore,  talks  about  a 
middle-ground  of  meeting  in  the  warfare  of  nations 
and  classes  within  nations,  he  talks  about  "Justice." 
The  Bolshevist  scorns  justice,  saying  that  it  is  merely 
a  specious  interpretation  of  power,  made  by  the  man 
who  got  the  jump  on  the  other  and  said  that  this  is  just 
and  that  unjust,  when  as  a  matter  of  fact  there  is  no 
moral  law  involved.  But  justice  is,  nevertheless,  the 
solvent  and  the  ideal  of  human  comfort  and  right. 
Generally,  all  human  needs  are  spelled  in  three  lan- 
guages— physical,  mental,  spiritual.  Justice  is  the 
largest  measure  of  human  liberty  consistent  with  the 
rights  of  others.  Those  rights  are  not  altogether  in 
food,  clothing  and  luxuries.  They  are  to  be  found  also 
in  human-love,  protection  of  children,  sanctity  of  home, 
right  to  live  on  the  face  of  the  earth,  satisfaction  of 
the  yearnings  of  spirit,  conscience,  religion,  soul. 

It  is  absurd,  therefore,  to  go  on  fighting  for  purely 
material  things.  We  cannot  spell  progress  in  dollars 
altogether — nor  even  in  shorter  hours  of  labor.  A 
world  in  which  every  man  was  earning  a  hundred  dol- 
lars a  week  and  working  an  hour  a  day,  would  starve 
to  death.  The  earth  would  laugh  at  him  and  say, 
"Starve."  The  edict  of  Eden  was  "by  the  sweat  of  thy 
brow  shalt  thou  earn  thy  daily  bread,"  or  words  to  that 
effect.  If  the  materialist,  who  represented  in  the  be- 
ginning a  common  ownership  of  land  and  a  common 
right  to  land,  had  put  his  labor  into  a  field  of  corn,  he 
would  not  care  to  share  that  labor  and  its  productive- 
ness with  a  man  who  sat  along  the  edge  of  the  furrow, 
with  his  arms  about  the  neck  of  a  nymph  and  a  bottle 
of  wine  in  his  stomach.  He  would  demand  segregation 
of  that  corn-field  against  such  non-producer,  and  thus 
would  be  set  up  again  the  "class."  He  would  say,  "This 
is  my  field." 

Democracy  is  not  a  Utopia  of  idleness.  There  is  no 
greater  mistake  than  that  comfort  can  come  by  less  of 


216       JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

honest  work.  There  is  no  truth  in  the  notion  that 
"labor"  is  with  the  hands  alone.  Happiness  is  not  alone 
in  creature  comforts.  Pleasure  exacts  the  same  toll 
out  of  life  as  does  toil — only  more  swift  and  depleting. 
Its  opposite  is  pain.  The  opposite  of  work  is  peace  and 
sound  sleep.  Those  who  talk  as  tho  this  world  were  all 
of  it  and  that  what  we  can  get  here  by  theft,  by 
anarchy,  by  the  red  flag,  is  all  to  the  good,  are  making 
the  terrible  mistake  of  forgetting  that  we  have  three 
natures — physical,  intellectual  and  spiritual,  and  that 
we  all  go  hence  to  some  reckoning.  If  this  were  true — 
that  all  we  get  here  by  theft,  anarchy  and  revolution,  is 
all  to  the  good  and  that  the  end  is  oblivion — the  world 
is  a  monstrous  mistake.  This  is  the  doctrine  that  sent 
Germany  to  the  trenches  and  made  of  the  world  a 
shambles.  This  is  the  doctrine  that  our  boys  have  been 
fighting.  Are  they  coming  back  to  find  that  this  doc- 
trine is  flourishing  here  at  home,  when  they  thought 
that  they  had  killed  it  in  the  trenches? 

Every  time  you  hear  this  Godlessness  preached 
(and  it  is  being  preached) ;  every  time  you  hear  any 
man  saying  that  this  is  the  time  to  get  all  you  can  re- 
gardless of  the  other  fellow,  you  better  deny  it.  This 
IS  the  time  to  get  what  is  consistent  with  justice,  and 
there  never  has  been  a  time  when  it  was  not  right  to 
do  so.  Justice  thinks  of  no  class,  but  all  classes.  It 
encourages  no  enslavement  of  any  man.  It  works  for 
equality  up  to  capacity.  It  thereby  encourages  every 
man  to  be  prudent,  persevering,  studious  and  diligent. 
If,  under  some  dispensation,  every  man  were  equal  to 
his  neighbor,  the  mind  would  cease  to  aspire  and  the 
soul  to  expand.  Justice  just  simply  gives  you  a  chance. 
You  can't  be  idle,  lazy,  cruel,  gross  and  Vindictive  and 
be  "equal"  to  the  man  who  has  cultivated  the  pastures 
of  his  mind  and  soul,  any  more  than  the  barren  field  is 
equal  to  that  which  ripples  in  the  golden  wheat. 


ON  "A  STORY  'HOW  HOSEA  CAME' " 

T  WAS  a  dark  and  stormy  night,  on  MooseEeaH 
Lake.  The  crowd  of  sports  were  sitting  in 
Elgin  Greenleaf's  camp  at  Sugar  Island.  It 
had  started  in  to  snow  along  about  three 
o'clock  and  Elgin  had  sent  the  steamer  down 
to  collect  the  boats  and  tow  them  in.  The 


snow  came  so  thickly  that  they  could  not  see  the  island 
and  had  to  steer  by  course  and  compass. 

After  supper,  with  the  decks  cleared  and  the  boys 
sitting  by  the  leaping  open  fire,  Elgin  himself  came  in 
and  sat  in  the  old  rocker,  talking  in  his  high,  eerie 
voice,  tuned  to  the  storm,  as  it  whistled  around  the 
corner. 

"Elgin,"  said  one  of  the  fishermen,  "it  must  be 
awful  lonely  here  sometimes,  especially  in  fall  and 
winter." 

Elgin  hunched  his  chair  a  little  nearer  the  ruddy 
blaze ;  took  a  look  up  at  the  little  over-head  scaffold  far 
up  in  the  eaves  of  the  camp,  on  which  were  stored  the 
tin-pails  of  matches,  nails,  screw-drivers  and  other  im- 
pedimenta of  a  hunting  camp,  and  began  to  tell  this 
story  to  Amos  Fitz,  Fred  Gross,  Ad  Pulsifer,  Henry 
Hanson  and  other  boys  gathered  around  him. 

"You  remember  my  friend  Hosea  that  used  to  come 
up  here,"  said  Elgin.  "He  was  a  spiritualist.  He  al- 
ways said  to  me,  'Elgin,  you  bear  in  mind  there  is 
something  in  this  here  spiritualist  business  and  I'm 
going  to  prove  it  to  you!'  He  used  to  tell  me  that  if 
he  died  before  I  did,  he  would  surely  come  back  and 
give  me  some  sort  of  a  demonstration  of  what  a  husky 
spirit  really  is.  'And/  said  he,  'I  won't  make  no  ordi- 
nary sort  of  a  demonstration.  I  will  make  one  hell  of 
a  noise,  so  that  there  won't  be  no  doubt  about  it. 
You'll  know  it  when  I  come.' 


218       JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

"Well,  Hosea  died  over  in  Bangor,  in  the  summer, 
and  I  staid  up  here  till  late  fall.  Everyone  had  gone 
and  I  was  expectin'  the  carpenter  to  come  over  from 
Kineo  station  to  help  me  close  up  the  houses  and  camps. 
It  came  up  to  snow  and  blow  a  gale,  just  about  as  it  is 
tonight  and  he  didn't  come,  so  I  was  all  alone  on  this 
big  island.  And,  boys,  it  blew  somethin'  awful.  The 
wind  howled  around  this  old  camp,  woofed  down  the 
chimbley,  roared  around  the  corners  and  shook  this 
camp  something  terrific.  The  fire  seemed  to  act  funny ; 
kept  leapin'  up  and  growin'  pale,  and  the  branches 
growled  against  the  roof  and  the  winds  seemed  to  be 
rattlin'  the  door  and  fingerin'  the  latch,  and  howlin'  like 
demons,  and  the  waves  sploshed  on  the  beach  and  a  lot 
of  other  sounds  mixed  in.  And  I,  all  alone,  I  naterally 
fell  to  thinkin'  of  Hosea." 

Elgin  paused  to  let  his  words  sink  in  and  that  his 
listeners  in  the  camp-fire's  light  might  compare  the 
description  of  that  night  with  the  wild  and  ghostly 
sounds  going  on  outside. 

"I  was  a  rockin'  right  here  and  thinkin'  of  Hosea. 
Sez  I  to  myself,  'Ef  Hosea  was  to  come,  wouldn't  he 
average  to  come  in  on  this  wind  and  to  the  old  place 
where  we  used  to  sit  and  on  such  a  night  as  this? 
Hosea  was  a  powerful  set  man!  He  never  said  he 
would  do  a  thing  and  failed  to  make  good.  He  was  a 
good  man  and  true,  and  I'm  rather  feared  he'll  come 
tonight.' 

"So  I  couldn't  keep  Hosea  out  of  my  mind !  I  was 
a  settin'  right  here,"  continued  Elgin.  "I  was  rockin' 
right  in  this  chair.  I  was  thinkin'  of  the  way  Hosea 
said  he  would  come,  with  a  hell  of  a  noise,  when,  boys, 
just  as  sure  as  I  am  alive,  there  came  right  behind  me, 
floatin'  like  &  streak  of  white  lightnin'  out  of  the  ceilin', 
a  somethin'  that  struck  the  floor  within  two  feet  of  the 
after  right  hand  rocker  of  this  old  chair  with  a  bang 
that — s-a-a-a-y,  well — you  never  heard  no  such  dam 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES       219 

racket  in  all  your  born  days,  rip-roaring,  tin  pans  and 
clatterin'  and  hellishness  personified  breakin"  all 
records. 

"Well,  sir,  that  noise  sent  a  thrill  thru  me  to  the 
marrer !  It  lifted  me  out  of  this  chair,  and  turnin' 
around,  I  leaped  to  my  feet  and  yelled  at  the  top  of  my 
voice,  'My  God,  Hosea,  HAVE  you  come?  Have  you 
COME?'"  

The  wind  whistled  a  stave  or  two  of  the  grave- 
digger's  lament,  over  the  chimney.  Silence  sat  on  the 
crowd  as  with  funeral  robes.  Elgin  rocked  gloomily, 
saying  nothing. 

"W-w-w-e-1-1,"  stammered  Fred  Gross  of  Auburn, 
"was  it  Hosea?" 

"No,"  said  Elgin  reflectively  as  he  thought  a  mo- 
ment. "It  was  a  tin  pail  full  of  nails  and  matches  that 
had  been  a-settin'  on  the  edge  of  the  scaffoldin'  right 
up  there  overhead,  and  it  had  come  loose  by  my  rockin' 
and  the  wind,  and  had  struck  bottom  up  jest  behind  my 
back!  I  ain't  never  heard  nothin'  from  Hosea  since." 


ON  "PRESERVATION  OF  THE  HOME" 

MONG  other  commissions,  we  should  have  one 
on  families  that  run  to  more  than  one  child. 
Modern  motherhood  has  taken  on  vastly 
complex  phases.  In  olden  days,  mother  ap- 
peared on  the  scene  (out  of  brief  and  periodic 
absences)  with  a  new  babe  in  arms  and  let 
the  forerunners  run.  In  those  days  the  germ  was  not 
in  existence ;  Pasteur  had  not  pessimized  us ;  dirt  was 
supposed  to  be  healthful  and  a  child  was  not  "doing 
well"  until  it  had  run  thru  the  gamut  of  children's 
diseases,  usually  without  other  medical  attendance  than 
the  household  "granny"  could  afford.  As  for  diet! 
Well,  it  was  table-food  and  enough  of  it. 


220      JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

Nowadays,  mother  is  a  little  wiser  than  Solomon 
about  babies  and  knows  more  than  Dioscorides  about 
medicine.  If  she  has  two  small  babies  she  is  a  slave. 
If  she  has  three,  she  is  a  "slavey."  If  she  has  four, 
she  is  a  martyr,  and  if  she  has  five;  she  is  a  nervous 
prostrate,  surrounded  by  winged  microbes,  influenzas, 
croups,  malnutritions,  adenoids,  tonsils,  circumcisions, 
dentitions,  infections,  septics,  antiseptics,  ptomaines, 
proteids  and  heat-units.  Her  mother  probably  never 
heard  of  any  of  them  and  the  Lord  protected  her  and 
her  brood.  The  Lord  has  now  abandoned  all  mothers 
and  they  have  nobody  left  to  protect  them,  poor  things, 
except  the  doctors  and  Uncle  Sam. 

Children  are  tyrants,  if  permitted  to  be.  They  are 
unreasoning  animals — content  with  what  they  have, 
unless  they  have  too  much.  Mother's  mother  had 
nothing  to  give  her  children  but  bread  and  molasses 
and  a  not  over-clean  kitchen  floor,  on  which  to  roll  to 
their  dirty  little  content.  Grandmother's  baby  finger 
was  besmeared  with  molasses  and  a  tiny  goosefeather 
stuck  to  it  and  grandmother  whiled  away  her  oblivious 
infant  day,  trying  to  pick  off  the  feather,  which  be- 
came increasingly  difficult  as  the  molasses  spread  on 
her  digits.  An  old-fashioned  baby  could  be  tied  in  a 
bushel  basket  and  set  on  the  back  door-step,  for  the 
afternoon,  with  certainty  of  never  a  "yip"  out  of  her. 
Now  she  needs  to  have  her  adenoids  inspected  hourly ; 
her  nutrition  weighed  minutely  on  apothecaries'  scales ; 
her  eyes  examined  by  the  oculist  every  afternoon; 
while  some  of  these  new  babies  are  said  to  be  even  born 
wearing  bifocal  lenses  on  their  tiny  noses. 

So  it  has  become  impossible  to  rear  babies,  fashion- 
ably and  scientifically,  any  longer,  without  a  Federal 
Commission  to  supply  what  the  Red  Cross  has  been 
supplying  in  this  war — first  aid  to  dying,  starving, 
soul-worn  motherhood.  Few  women  can  live  thru  the 
successful  battle  against  unseen  foes,  for  one  child, 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES       221 

much  less  two  or  more.  Many  of  them  foresee  the 
issue  and  leave  large  families  to  those  who  can't  afford 
to  hire  child-specialists  and  therefore  can  afford  to 
have  babies.  The  answer  to  this  is :  think  of  the  chil- 
dren we  save  by  fanning  off  the  germ.  The  reply  to 
this  is:  think  of  the  children  we  lose  by  knowing  so 
much.  The  pros  say  "notice  the  lessening  infant  mor- 
tality." The  cons  say  "notice  the  decreasing  birth- 
rate." Give  us  liberty  or  give  us  a  Federal  Commis- 
sion to  supply  nurses  for  tired  mothers. 

Do  you  know  anything  that  is  scarcer  than  hen's 
teeth?  Yes!  Baby-tenders!  I  know  a  woman  who 
offered  this  week,  $25  a  week,  board,  laundry,  an  after- 
noon out  with  a  ticket  to  the  movies,  to  a  nurse  to  come 
to  her  home  and  care  for  four  children  for  three  weeks 
while  she  went  to  New  York  to  escape  going  crazy. 
She  offered  it  again  and  again  in  vain.  All  seekers  for 
employment  turned  the  job  down  and  the  children  are 
all  healthy,  happy,  contented  little  folk,  just  active,  and 
yet  we  hear  about  organized  charities. 

So  we  turn  to  President  Wilson  and  suggest  that  as 
soon  as  he  makes  peace  abroad,  he  come  here  and  make 
peace  at  home.  The  soldier  in  the  field  has  done  his  bit 
and  it  took  ten  months.  The  mother,  at  home,  does 
her  bit  and  it  takes  a  lifetime.  And  nobody  talks  of 
federal  aid  for  her  but  myself.  If  infant  mortality  is  to 
be  kept  low,  and  mothers  are  to  keep  up  the  fight 
against  unseen  foes,  Maternalism  must  join  Paternal- 
ism in  government  and  jaunty  maiden  ladies,  who  have 
been  driving  automobiles  or  worked  for  the  Red  Cross 
or  knitted  and  purled  in  public,  must  rally  to  the  relief 
of  their  sisters  on  the  firing  line  of  the  cradle.  We 
must  have  organized  central  agencies  of  relief.  We 
must  have  organized  rest-day  planning,  for  half-crazed 
mothers.  We  must  have  settlement  of  increasing  per- 
plexities of  house-keeping.  We  must  have  organiza- 
tion of  cooking  and  service.  We  must  have  intelligent 


222       JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

consideration  by  the  government  of  how  the  American 
home  may  be  saved ;  for  as  sure  as  you  are  a  foot  high, 
it  is  in  danger.  We  must  either  have  cooks,  nurses, 
housemaids,  or  we  must  give  up  having  babies.  We 
must  have  service  or  else  give  up  the  home  and  turn 
the  babies  over  to  some  germ-proof  storehouse  for 
rearing  them. 

Either  one  of  these  I  say  (all  obnoxious  or  impos- 
sible) ,  or  a  government  of  the  mothers,  by  the  mothers 
and  for  the  mothers,  by  Federal  commission,  lest 
babies  perish  from  the  land. 


ON  'THE  PINE  TREE" 

HIS  tree  stands  by  the  sea  and  on  mountains 
and  speaks  a  language  of  the  sea.  Lowell 
says  of  it :  "But  the  trees  all  kept  their  coun- 
sel and  never  word  said  they;  only  there 
sighed  from  the  pine-tops  a  music  of  seas  far 
away."  If  you  lie  on  the  brown  floor  of  a  pine 
wood  and  look  up  at  them  and  see  the  needle  points 
reaching  about,  each  to  his  neighbor,  and  see  the 
branches  swaying  to  and  fro,  you  can  easily  hear  the 
whispering  and  it  is  all  of  ships  and  the  sea  and  of  the 
wind  of  the  salty  odor,  that  passes  along.  The  pines 
at  Bowdoin  College,  Brunswick,  always  seemed  to  be 
talking  of  the  ocean  whose  breezes  stirred  them. 

"The  pines  have  always  been  a  sea-going  family 
since  first  sails  were  spread,"  says  Maud  Going,  who 
wrote  a  beautiful  book  about  trees  and  who  quotes 
from  Reybolles  about  the  pine:  "This  grand  tree, 
shooting  up  like  a  palm  towards  the  clouds,  what  is  its 
fate?  Prone  and  naked  in  the  hands  of  the  ship- 
wright ;  rising  to  the  stately  mast  of  a  ship ;  carrying  a 
flag  with  all  the  ideas  it  represents,  to  the  ends  of  the 
earth."  Thus  born  by  the  sea,  destined  to  the  sea,  why 


JJJgT  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES       223 

not  talk  among  its  branches  of  the  sea,  rippling  like 
silken-gowns  or  roaring  like  distant  surf  on  ledges. 

The  pine  tree  has  a  peculiar  function  among  trees, 
also.  It  lives  all  along  the  Atlantic  coast  from  far 
north  to  far  south  and  forms  a  windbreak  and  barrier 
for  the  more  tender,  broad-leaved  trees  that  live  fur- 
ther inland.  And  yet  more  strange,  they  live  also 
along  the  Great  Lakes  and  brave  the  gales  there,  for 
the  same  valiant  purpose.  For  the  gales  that  sweep 
the  Maine  coast  thru  the  pine  and  spruce,  hemlock  and 
fir,  would  tear  to  tatters  the  broad-leafed  oak  or  maple 
or  elm.  The  evergreens  are  brave,  staunch  trees,  bear- 
ing burdens  of  snow  on  their  sturdy  branches.  The 
winds  slip  thru  them;  they  fling  their  arms  skilfully, 
like  a  boxer  in  the  ring,  and  they  love  the  cold  and  the 
storm.  They  are  fit  emblems  for  this  State  of  Maine, 
that  also  stands  firm,  with  its  jutting  headlands  against 
the  piling  thunderbolts  of  the  winter  storm. 

Another  thing  about  the  Pine-tree  and  some  of  its 
brother  conifers,  is  this :  it  endures  easily  and  proudly 
where  life  is  hardest.  It  is  an  out-door,  two-fisted 
tree.  It  does  not  matter  much  to  the  pine  whether 
it  is  in  the  arid  sand  or  on  the  sparse  soil  of  the  rock- 
bound  coast  or  on  mountain-tops,  it  will  endure. 
Sometimes  in  the  sand,  it  will  send  down  tap-roots 
thirty  feet  for  moisture.  You  will  find  them  also  on 
the  flinty  scarp  of  Mount  Kineo,  clinging  to  rocks  with 
roots  piercing  fissures  hardly  big  enough  for  the  blade 
of  a  pen-knife  to  enter ;  yet  exposed  to  gales  that  would 
rip  the  life  out  of  a  maple.  And  here  the  pine  stands, 
and  sings  and  sings.  The  pine-tree  did  not  choose  this 
kind  of  life.  It  was  naturally  a  tree  of  the  lush  lands, 
the  river  valleys.  Here  it  is  so  beautiful  that  one  can 
well-nigh  worship  it.  Once,  the  conifer  covered  the 
earth.  They  were  mighty  in  the  land,  when  all  at 
once,  lo!  the  broad-leaved  trees  appeared  in  immense 
number  and  variety.  They  were  like  an  invading 


224       JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

army — as  when  the  Saxon  invaded  England,  says  one 
author,  and  the  wild  British  fled  to  swamp,  mountain, 
desert  and  barren.  So  fled  the  pine  by  absolute  con- 
quest of  numbers — but  never  dismayed,  only  made  the 
stronger  and  more  self-reliant.  Some  went  to  the 
sands,  sending  roots  deep,  so  that  when  burned  over, 
the  pine  reappears  from  its  deep  sources.  The  broad 
leafed  tree  can  never  follow  them  to  their  retreats. 

The  Maine  pine  once  lived  in  Greece.  There,  ac- 
cording to  mythology,  it  was  a  lovely  maiden,  named 
Pitys,  whom  Pan,  the  player  of  world-symphonies,  on 
river  reeds,  the  sweet  god  Pan,  loved.  He  whispered 
to  her  on  the  breezes  and  Boreas  heard  it — wild  Boreas 
of  the  North  wind.  He  also  fell  in  love  with  Pitys  and 
declared  that  no  mere  piper  on  small  instruments 
should  have  the  maid ;  so  he  threw  her  from  the  rocks 
and  the  gods  caught  her  just  in  time  to  make  her  into 
the  Pine. 

The  winds  love  the  Pine  and  foster  it.  All  its  seed- 
ing is  done  by  the  wind;  thus  it  seeds  where  life  is  so 
cold  that  bird  or  insect  could  not  live.  You  have  seen 
the  pine-pollen  in  long  yellow  streaks  on  ponds.  The 
pine  cone  is  so  wonderful  as  to  deserve  a  chapter  to 
itself.  It  will  make  you  sure  of  God;  it  could  not 
happen  by  chance. 

Massachusetts  put  the  pine  on  its  coinage.  Maine 
took  it  for  its  symbol — the  happiest  gift  from  the 
mother  state.  Our  forefathers  did  not  choose  it  for  its 
beauty,  because  along  by  the  sea  it  is  gnarled  and 
twisted.  They  chose  it  because  it  is  an  out-post  tree, 
protecting  the  weak;  because  it  is  rugged  and  strong; 
because  it  is  clean ;  because  it  is  ever-green  and  never- 
dead.  They  chose  it  because  they  saw  in  it  an  augury 
of  the  people  of  this  State.  They  chose  it  because  they 
hoped  we  might  be  as  undaunted  as  the  Pine. 


ON  "TOTAL  DEPRAVITY  OF 
INANIMATE  THINGS" 

ANY  years  ago,  Edward  Everett  Hale  wrote  a 
story  about  a  hoop-skirt  and  how  it  deliber- 
ately and  with  malice  aforethought,  defeated 
the  Southern  Confederacy.  An  old-fashioned 
hoop-skirt,  out-of-place,  was  a  pure  and 
highly  accomplished  type  of  depravity.  Mr. 
Hale  went  farther  than  this  and  spoke  of  "the  TOTAL 
depravity  of  inanimate  things."  One  could  not  satisfy 
any  of  the  inclinations  of  a  discarded  hoop-skirt. 
There  was  no  way  of  pleasing  it.  It  was  totally  de- 
praved. If  you  had  lived  in  the  days  when  they  were 
fashionable,  which  came  along  about  the  time  of  the 
civil  war  and  a  few  years  later,  and  had  been  compelled 
as  a  boy  to  take  a  hoop-skirt  and  dispose  of  it,  you 
would  understand.  The  hoop-skirt  was  a  series  of  steel 
wires,  flattened  and  thin,  highly  elastic,  laid  parallel 
and  concentric,  held  together  by  tapes  and  worn  about 
the  female  form  for  purpose  of  sinuous  rotundity  and 
other  things.  I  have  nothing  to  say  about  what  they 
would  do  when  worn.  Far  be  it  from  me.  But  I  do 
know  something  about  them  after  they  were  supposed 
to  be  dead  and  discarded. 

For  instance,  an  old  hoop-skirt  could  not  be  put  into 
an  ash-barrel.  If  you  attempted  it,  the  hoop-skirt 
would  immediately  stick  its  head  up  over  the  top  of  the 
barrel  like  the  sea-serpent  from  the  deeps  and  would 
grasp  you  in  its  embrace.  You  could  not  burn  a  hoop- 
skirt  in  a  bonfire,  for  if  you  tried  to  do  so,  the  hoop- 
skirt  would  disentangle  itself  and,  released  from  its 
tape,  would  go  cavorting  all  over  the  yard  and  up  the 
street  and  snaking  it  all  over  the  neighborhood,  and  the 
neighbors  would  say,  "There  comes  one  of  the  X's  old 


226       JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

hoop-skirts."  You  could  not  bury  one  of  them.  Oh, 
no.  I  have  seen  hoop-skirts  that  had  been  buried  a 
week,  rise  from  their  graves  and  come  leaping  into  the 
house.  The  dynamic  power  of  a  bundled  up  hoop-skirt 
was  equal  to  that  of  a  modern  depth-bomb.  You  could 
not  hang  them  up  in  a  closet  out  of  the  way,  for  if  you 
ever  entered  a  closet,  the  hoop-skirt  was  ready  and 
waiting  for  you.  It  would  grasp  you  around  the  neck ; 
and  you  would  get  your  head  between  the  wires  and 
you  were  liable  to  be  choked  to  death  or  guillotined. 
You  could  not  put  one  of  them  in  a  trunk.  Oh  no, 
once  more!  When  you  opened  that  trunk  the  hoop- 
skirt  would  leap  to  the  ceiling  and  come  down  envelop- 
ing you.  You  couldn't  throw  them  in  the  river,  for  the 
pesky  things  would  catch  in  the  propellors  of  steam 
craft  and  do  damage.  Junk  men  would  not  buy  them. 
Ash  men  would  not  take  them.  The  only  thing  pos- 
sible was  to  hang  them  right  side  up  from  the  beams 
in  the  upper  attic  and  when  the  attic  was  full — why, 
sell  the  house. 

There  are  other  things,  more  modern,  that  have  a 
certain  element  of  "total  depravity  of  inanimate 
things."  They  have  a  certain  deviltry  that  seems  to 
reside  in  some  element  of  matter,  cognate  with  intellec- 
tuality. Indeed,  some  of  these  things  seem  to  think, 
exclusively,  in  terms  of  mischief.  I  think  I  have 
spoken  of  union-suits.  I  have  actually  proven  that  a 
union-suit  of  respectable  ancestry  and  make,  will  ac- 
tually turn  wrong  side  out  in  the  night.  I  have  laid 
them  absolutely  right  side  up  at  10  P.M.,  signed,  sealed, 
et  cetera,  and  woke  in  the  morning  to  find  the  left  leg 
where  the  right  ought  to  be  and  the  seat  thereof  on  the 
front  porch  and  the  right  leg  twisted  around  the  neck. 
I  have  almost  caught  them  squirming  into  mischief  in 
the  night.  At  present  I  am  driving  a  nail  thru  the  seat 
of  mine  every  evening  so  as  to  make  sure  of  finding  it 
in  equilibrium  in  the  morning.  And  what  is  worse, 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES       227 

with  hoop-skirts,  union-suits  and  so  forth,  is  that  they 
choose  the  most  unfortunate  times  for  their  depraved 
doings.  The  rascals  actually  THINK.  There  is  no 
doubt  about  it. 

Take  a  shoe-string.  Did  one  of  them  ever  break  on 
a  fine,  peaceful,  leisurely  Sunday  morning,  when  you 
had  more  time  than  you  knew  what  to  do  with  ?  Never. 
It  looks  up  into  your  face  innocently,  assuringly,  on  all 
leisurely  days ;  but  when  you  are  in  a  hurry,  when  the 
world  depends  on  your  catching  the  7.10  train,  it 
"busts."  And  it  "busts"  in  a  perfectly  sound  spot. 
Take  shoes!  Did  your  shoes  ever  squeak  except  at  a 
time  when  you  were  compelled  to  walk  up  the  aisle  in 
some  highly  formal  gathering  with  the  eyes  of  every- 
body on  you — such  a  place  as  church — or  when  sud- 
denly called  to  the  platform  as  third  vice-president  of 
the  league  to  enforce  peace.  THEY  know.  Say  they : 
"This  is  the  time  to  make  this  poor  old  simpleton  red  in 
the  face.  Let's  do  it!"  When  do  suspender  buttons 
burst  away  in  a  perfect  rain  of  buttons?  At  recep- 
tions when  you  are  in  the  receiving  line  and  when  you 
can't  shake  hands,  hold  your  wife's  bouquet  and  main- 
tain your  equatorial  respectability  with  fewer  than 
four  hands. 

Don't  talk  to  me — inanimate  things  think ;  and  they 
are  frequently  depraved,  and  highly  inclined  to  prick 
the  bubble  of  our  self-complacency,  reduce  swollen 
heads  and  take  the  conceit  out  of  all  men  and  some 
women.  In  this  way  they  have  educational  uses. 


ON  'THE  HALF  HOUR  BEFORE  YOU  SLEEP" 

OW  many  of  us  pass  for  a  little  while  into 
another  world  in  the  brief  half  hour  before 
we  go  to  sleep  o'  nights?  Then  there  are 
visions  a  plenty,  flowering  and  fading,  weav- 
ing in  and  out  into  a  fabric  as  weird  and 
impalpable  as  the  far-off  curtains  of  cathe- 


drals that  we  have  never  entered. 

The  mind  then  plays  strange  tricks  with  us  and 
brings  out  of  its  recesses  all  sorts  of  ghosts  that  we 
thought  were  long  since  laid.  They  are,  as  someone 
has  said,  "like  old  daguerreotypes  that  shine  out  with 
unexpected  vividness  from  their  cases,"  visions  of  old 
houses  "where  dwells  a  ghost  of  yesterday,  of  a  girl, 
now  half  a  century  dead,  of  lovers  who  kiss  a  while; 
then,  drowsily,  the  mists  blow  round  them  wan,  and 
they,  like  ghosts,  are  gone." 

There  are  certain  places  in  my  mind  that  keep  com- 
ing up  every  now  and  then,  and  have  done  so  for  forty 
years.  They  are  the  most  commonplace  incidents  of 
boyhood  life — a  path  that  led  up  past  a  fence,  by  the 
side  of  a  stone-pit,  up  a  very  narrow  shelf  of  rock,  to  a 
hill-top  and  then  a  western  view  that  is  set  with  an  old 
oak  tree  and  a  frog  pond.  Whenever  I  think  of  this,  a 
train  of  reminiscence  is  set  up  and  immediately  I  think 
of  Prester  John.  Now  why  in  the  world  should  one 
think  of  that  mysterious  party  of  olden  traditions 
when  this  place  comes  to  mind  ?  But  never  do  I  think 
of  this  on  the  hill-top ;  for,  having  arrived  there,  I  think 
of  the  Tower  of  London  and  Eliot,  Pym  and  Raleigh 
and  all  of  the  rest  of  that  busy  breed  of  men  who  were 
headed  mostly  toward  the  final  home  of  England's 
brains,  in  those  days. 

I  have  never  cared  to  ask  other  people  if  they  were 
bothered  with  the  persistent  return,  night  after  night, 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES       229 

of  these  strange  old  places.  Each  of  them  leads  to  a 
definite  train  of  thought.  For  instance,  if  I  think  of  a 
certain  nook  where  I  used  to  lie  of  a  summer  afternoon 
and  listen  to  the  waves  under  the  piers,  I  bring  in  an- 
other train  of  thought  and  especially  of  old  sea  rovers. 
The  reason  of  this  is  natural  enough,  but  why  Prester 
John  and  old  romances  because  I  start  in  my  mind  to 
crawl  dangerously  and  painfully  up  that  narrow  ledge 
of  rock  to  the  old  hill-top? 

Of  course  there  are  times  in  everyone's  dreaming — 
consciously  dreaming — when  there  are  visions  that 
seem  to  come  plainly  from  one's  past.  With  everyone 
the  old  imagery  appears.  I  often  see  myself  as  a 
ragged  boy  walking  thru  strange  places  that  I  have 
never  visited  and  never  shall  in  this  world.  What  are 
they?  Are  they  evidences  of  some  other  existence, 
some  pre-natal  life — or  just  fancies?  Perhaps  you 
have  seen,  as  I  have  seen,  places  that  seemed  to  have 
been  visited  before;  heard  things  that  you  seemed  to 
have  heard  in  some  previous  existence  and  especially  in 
this  mystic  half  hour  when  the  soul  is  about  to  take 
wings  and  fly  away,  does  one  stand  at  the  portals  and 
peer  into  the  other  world? 

Certain  lines  of  reading  also  cause  familiar  scenes 
of  childhood  to  intervene  between  me  and  the  pages. 
There  is  a  certain  lonely  old  house,  that  keeps  con- 
stantly in  my  mind.  I  have  no  association  with  it; 
was  never  inside  of  it ;  know  nothing  about  it ;  can  see 
only  its  old  battered  stove  pipe,  leaning  tipsy-like  to 
one  side.  I  have  been  reading  the  story  of  Ghengis 
Khan  and  all  of  the  time  crawling  over  the  rafters  of 
an  old,  abandoned  stone-crusher  where  we  used  to  revel 
as  a  lot  of  boys  will  do  in  any  abandoned  property. 

"I  have  killed  the  moth,"  says  the  poet,  "flying 
around  my  night-light,  but  who  will  kill  the  time-moth 
that  eats  holes  in  my  soul  and  that  burrows  thru  and 
thru  my  secretest  veils.  .  .  .  Who  will  shatter  the 


230       JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

Change-Moth  that  leaves  me  in  rags — tattered  old 
tapestries  that  swing  in  the  winds  that  blow  out  of 
Chaos.  Night-Moth,  Change-Moth,  Time-Moth,  eaters 
of  dreams  and  of  me."  You  talk  materialism  when 
you  cannot  understand  why  your  soul  plays  such 
pranks  with  you.  You  talk  materialism  when  face  to 
face  with  the  Change  that  touches  all  of  us  as  with  the 
death  of  the  moth !  Better  solve  the  things  that  may 
be,  in  the  half -hour  before  you  go  to  sleep,  than  answer 
so  many  questions  about  the  things  that  are ! 


ON  "THE  OLD  COUNTRY  BRASS-BAND" 

NEVER  played  in  a  brass  band,  but  my  uncle 
did  and  I  always  went  to  hear  him.  He 
played  a  bass  horn.  His  name  was  Uncle 
George.  When  he  was  not  playing  in  the 
band — he  played  seldom — he  ran  a  country 
store  and  sold  everything  from  gunpowder 
to  molasses.  He  could  not  keep,  therefore,  a  first-class 
bass-horn  lip.  And  after  he  had  juggled  a  half-dozen 
mowing  machines  and  handled  a  ton  or  two  of  bar-iron 
and  steel,  his  fingers  were  not  very  nimble  on  "Comin' 
thru  the  Rye." 

The  band  reorganized  once  a  year,  in  July.  Its 
purpose  was  to  run  an  excursion  on  the  "fast  and  safe 
ocean-going  barge  'Yosemite'  to  Boothbay  Harbor  or 
Fort  Popham,  with  music  by  the  Bowdoinham  Brass 
Band."  It  took  about  two  weeks  for  the  band  to  get 
up  its  personnel  and  its  lip.  It  met  in  the  Grand  Army 
hall  for  rehearsals.  There  were  two  things  that  filled 
a  boy's  heart  with  glee — when  the  fire-engine  played 
once  a  month,  and  when  the  band  was  getting  ready  for 
its  annual  excursion.  One  was  as  wet  as  the  other. 

The  band  always  played  a  piece  called  "The  Basso's 
Pride."  My  Uncle  George  was  the  basso  and  the  pride 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES       231 

was  all  his.  It  consisted  of  a  solo  of  three  grunts  and 
a  dying  wail.  That  is  the  way  it  struck  me.  When- 
ever the  band  approached  this  tour  de  force  of  Uncle 
George,  my  heart  stopped  and  did  no  business.  Uncle 
George  would  lay  down  his  basso ;  look  around  to  see  if 
the  crowd  was  watching  and  that  all  was  still ;  he  would 
pick  up  his  horn,  get  inside  of  it;  then  his  eyeballs 
would  begin  to  stick  out  and  out  and  out;  his  back 
would  arch  like  a  tom-cat  in  a  fight;  his  hair  would 
rise  and  then  with  tremendous  power  would  emit 
"Poom-pah — Poom-pah !  Ugh-ugh-ugh !  P-o-o-m-pah ! 
Ugh-ugh-woof !  Um-pah-"  and  then  "do-re-mi !  Oom- 
pah."  And  then  his  eyeballs  would  recede  and  his  hair 
fall  and  he  would  stop  and  take  down  his  bass-horn 
and  wipe  his  brow.  The  solo  was  ,over;  the  liquid 
melodies  were  no  more.  "The  Basso's  Pride"  was 
ended.  It  was,  indeed,  beautiful. 

I  liked  to  see  the  band  assemble  on  the  morning  of 
the  excursion.  It  came  from  "The  Ridge ;"  "Abbakill- 
dassett,"  Carter's  Corner  and  the  Landing.  They 
rarely  got  over  eighteen  out,  with  instruments,  includ- 
ing a  boy  with  cymbals.  The  uniform  was  architec- 
turally abrupt.  It  was  cut  before  it  shrunk.  I  have 
seen  pants  that  musically  speaking  were  arpeggio. 
In  other  words  the  legs  were  arpeggio — not  cut  simul- 
taneously. They  were  coloraturo  in  a  large  and  sym- 
pathetic way;  red  caps;  blue  coats;  green  pants  and 
yellow  trimmings — a  sort  of  passionate  uniform  inten- 
sifying the  atmosphere  of  the  players.  When  you 
heard  the  band  play  one  of  its  three  tunes — the  "Girl  I 
Left  Behind  Me,"  which  they  always  played  as  the 
noble  "Yosemite"  swung  into  the  restricted  Cathance, 
you  felt  so  darn  bad  about  the  girls  that  you  forgot 
the  music. 

The  E-flat  cornet  player  was  red-headed.  His  red 
cap  and  his  red  hair  and  his  red  face  and  his  freckles 
made  me  very  much  concerned  for  spontaneous  com- 


232       JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

bastion.  He  played  con  expressione.  When  he  arose 
to  give  the  preliminary  warble  for  a  tune  he  went  thru 
some  gymnastics,  believe  me.  He  literally  girded  his 
loins  for  battle.  He  tested  the  compression  in  his 
cornet  by  blowing  thru  the  air  vent  in  the  side.  Then 
he  thumped  it  up  against  the  railing  of  the  barge 
"Yosemite"  to  see  if  some  bad  little  boy  had  put  a 
doughnut  in  the  bell.  Then  he  blew  in  the  mouth  a 
little  easy  to  see  if  the  suction  was  all  right  and  she 
could  get  her  gas.  Then  he  patted  the  side  of  the 
cornet  and  "over  it  softly  his  warm  ear  laid"  to  get 
the  music  of  the  corn-fields  and  the  summer  winds. 
Then  he  lifted  his  head  eager,  alert,  majestic,  and 
maestro-like.  And  then  would  swell  out  "The  Basso's 
Pride"  aforesaid. 

People  came  for  miles  to  hear  that  parting  tune. 
It  was  the  mingled  sweetness  of  barnyard,  hayfield, 
grocery-store  and  all  the  financial  institutions  of  the 
town,  viz.,  the  cashier  of  the  bank.  Uncle  George  did 
his  darndest.  Superhuman  sounds  led  up  to  the  bass- 
solo.  Chords  never  heard  on  land,  but  reserved  for 
storms  at  sea  swelled  over  the  placid  Cathance  and  the 
shores  took  up  the  echoes.  The  clarinet  wailed  and 
the  drums  rattled  and  roared.  The  altos  altoed  on 
their  toes  and  the  piccolo  squealed  like  a  storm  thru 
the  lee  braces.  And  then  lo!  It  was  still!  As  still 
as  tho  someone  had  said  "Peace!"  and  then  Uncle 
George  had  the  floor. 

I  can  see  nothing  but  his  eyeballs  gradually 
emerging  from  his  countenance ;  and  hear  nothing  now, 
but  that  glorious  "Oom-pah!"  Four  notes  this  time 
and  a  dying  grunt.  Nothing  ever  surpassed  it; 
nothing  ever  will.  Uncle  George  should  have  been  a 
bass-soloist  and  nothing  else ! 


ON  "MORE  ON  THE  OLD  BRASS  BAND" 

HE  OLD  country  band  still  echoes  down  the 
corridors  of  time,  especially  in  my  corre- 
spondence. Every  day  or  two  some  one 
writes  me  about  the  old  Bowdoinham  band,  in 
terms  of  reminiscence,  sweet  and  suggestive. 
Yesterday,  a  letter  came  from  Wellesley, 
Mass.,  about  the  old  Bowdoinham  Band  and  I  would 
enjoy  other  reminiscences  of  similar  nature  about 
other  old  country  bands,  for  they  seem  as  music  "faint 
and  clear"  from  other  days. 

This  friend  says  that  after  my  Uncle  George  was 
compelled  to  give  over  the  solo  part  of  "The  Basso's 
Pride,"  on  account  of  his  business,  rather  than  because 
of  any  lack  of  lip  or  artistry,  he  was  replaced  by  a  local 
barber  named  Evander  ("Van")  Thomas,  who  under- 
took the  bass-horn.  "Van"  not  only  did  the  village 
barbering,  but  he  also  sold  confectionery,  cigars,  ice- 
cream, lemonade  and  hair-restorer.  Van  would  come 
direct  from  a  shave  or  a  hair-cut  and  serve  you  a  lemon- 
ade or  an  ice-cream;  so  that  his  delicatessen  was  not 
always  bald-headed.  But  as  he  said,  playfully,  "We 
charge  nothing  extra  for  hairs  in  the  lemonade."  I  can 
remember  him  well,  for  he  cut  my  hair  once;  and  I 
recall  that  at  the  time  he  was  studying  a  piece  of  music 
set  on  the  shelf  under  the  looking-glass,  meanwhile  he 
snipped  off  portions  of  my  scalp  and  ears.  But  as  he 
said,  "I  will  make  it  the  same  price  and  not  charge  you 
anything  for  the  extra  close  cut."  He  was  a  fair  and 
generous  barber. 

Van's  musical  capacity  was,  of  course,  not  within 
my  ken,  but  my  Wellesley  friend  says  "it  was  marvel- 
ous, for  Van  had  no  idea  of  time."  If  the  band  started 
off  before  he  was  ready  (i.e.,  before  he  had  spit  and  got- 
ten his  head  thru  the  hole  in  the  horn),  he  could  not 


234       JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

find  the  place  on  the  music.  All  he  could  do  was  to  begin 
at  the  beginning  and  do  his  best  to  catch  up.  Usually 
he  came  out  about  eight  "oom-pah's"  behind  and  Van 
never  omitted  one  of  them.  He  played  his  whole  piece 
from  beginning  to  end.  In  other  words,  he  "done  his 
full  duty." 

Another  character  was  Henry  Williams.  He  had 
played  the  fife  in  the  Civil  War.  He  also  chawed 
tobacco  and  drooled  a  lot.  His  notes  were,  therefore, 
liquid.  It  was  a  wonder  how  he  could  chew  tobacco, 
hold  his  quid  and  play  "Marchin'  Through  Georgia"  at 
the  same  time.  Henry  has  long  since  been  gathered  to 
his  fathers.  Peace  to  his  ashes.  He  is  probably  now 
playing  the  flute  by  the  side  of  the  River  of  Life,  and  a 
golden  flute,  too,  with,  we  trust,  a  complete  plumbing 
and  sewer  system  attached. 

William  Douglass  was  the  snare  drummer  of  this 
band.  Mr.  Douglass  has  long  since  passed  on,  so  that 
it  may  do  no  harm  to  refer  to  his  personal  appearance. 
He  was  over  six  feet  tall,  very  spare,  as  one-sided  as  a 
postman  and  gifted  with  a  very  large  musical  and  ex- 
ternal ear — in  fact,  a  pair  of  them.  My  Wellesley 
friend  says  that  William's  ears  had  neither  "serrations 
nor  corrugations,"  but  had  a  well-defined  cartilage  run 
thru  the  outer  edge  like  the  string  thru  a  pair  of  paja- 
mas to  keep  them  from  falling.  There  is  no  greater 
physical  trouble  than  "falling  of  the  ears."  John  Bib- 
ber, who  used  to  live  in  Bowdoinham,  said  that  William 
could  lie  down  in  one  ear  and  cover  himself  up  with  the 
other.  Now,  of  course  every  reader  knows  that  when 
a  band  starts  out  to  march,  it  has  method.  The  leader 
gives  one  toot  on  his  horn;  waits  two  or  three  beats 
according  as  the  time  be  three-four  or  four-four,  and 
then  he  gives  two  toots  and  then  the  snare  drummer 
(I'd  give  my  scanty  hope  of  heavei)  to  be  a  boy  again 
and  a  snare  drummer  in  a  band)  must  roll  the  drum 
for  one  or  two  half -measures,  winding  up  with  two 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES       235 

staccato  beats  and  then  "Hoop-la!  Away  they  go! 
Basses  grunting,  piccolos  squealing,  cornets  boasting, 
clarinets  singing,  drums  rum-tumming.  Everybody 
marching  away,  left  foot  for'rard! 

William  was  a  moderate  thinker  and  mover.  His 
transmission  was  poor.  The  preliminary  toot  usually 
found  William  unready  and  three  to  five  measures  be- 
hind. So  the  band  would  start  off,  some  marching, 
some  playing,  some  waiting  and  the  leader  would  toot 
a  reverse  action  and  Mr.  Douglass  would  roll  the  drum 
about  ten  measures  to  the  rear ;  and  Van  would  lose  his 
place  and  start  off  way  behind  and  Henry  Williams 
would  lose  his  warble  and  yet  we  all  would  say  "What 
lovely  music."  It  was  lovely.  I  swear  it. 

There  was  once  a  drum  corps  in  Harpswell  that  was 
made  up  of  a  one-armed  bass-drummer  and  three  hare- 
lipped  fifers.  My  Wellesley  friend  says  that  when 
they  played  "Marching  Through  Georgia,"  it  sounded 
like  an  echo  from  the  caves  of  Aeolus,  where  they  breed 
wind. 


ON  "CAPPING  THE  MAIN  TRUCK'1 

EARS  ago  the  tall  square-riggers  used  to  rear 
their  slender  masts  above  my  native  city  of 
Bath,  Maine.  The  riggers  worked  on  them 
getting  them  ready  for  the  sea.  Queer,  old- 
fashioned  sailormen  were  these  riggers,  all  of 
whom  had  sailed  many  a  time  across  the 
Western  ocean  as  well  as  the  other  six  of  the  seven 
seas.  I  can  hear  them  now,  with  their  deep  sea  chan- 
ties, "Way  Down  Rio,"  "Blow  a  Man  Down/'  "Biscay, 
0!"  and  many  more,  that  linger  only  as  faint  memo- 
ries of  music,  long  forgot.  One  sturdy,  tarry  man,  I 
can  see  now,  and  his  voice  I  yet  can  hear  across  the 
years,  rolling  above  the  tide  down  the  river,  up  the 
river,  head-chanteyman  was  he ! 


236       JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

Boys  of  Bath  used  to  infest — I  use  the  word  after 
due  consideration — used  to  infest  the  ships  as  they  lay 
at  the  wharves  making  ready  for  sailing  off  to  sea, 
never  to  return.  We  swarmed  over  them,  down  in  the 
holds,  in  the  dark  places  along  the  keelson;  between 
decks  where  the  ship  smelled  of  tarred  rope  and  of  the 
hard-pine;  thru  the  forecastle  and  the  after-cabins, 
here  and  there  as  we  willed,  provided  we  kept  out  of 
the  way;  and  often  we  were  given  a  chance  to  take  a 
turn  on  the  huge  capstan-bars  and  help  a  crew  warp  up 
a  main  yard  to  the  music  of  a  chantey. 

But  there  was  one  thing  that  no  boy  who  frequented 
ships  could  escape,  and  that  was  no  "duty"  either.  It 
was  a  custom,  a  tradition,  a  sentimental  journey  per- 
formed by  boys  from  early  days ;  a  test  of  courage  and 
of  high  appeal  to  adventure.  And  that  was  "capping 
the  main-truck."  It  must  not  be  the  truck  of  the  fore- 
mast or  the  mizzenmast,  but  the  truck  of  the  mainmast 
— the  tiny  ball  that  rests  on  the  tip  of  the  mast,  thru 
which  the  flag-halliards  run.  Each  boy  who  had  the 
privilege  of  boys  on  ship-board  as  the  craft  lay  rigging 
at  the  wharf,  must  do  the  stunt  or  be  forever  disbarred 
from  the  society  of  the  boy  of  daring  and  of  spunk. 
"Coward"  and  worse  were  the  anathemas  toward  that 
boy  forever  after  among  the  boys — and  the  riggers 
were  not  slow  in  helping  on  the  custom,  either. 

I  have  often  thought  of  that  duty  in  years  since 
then — mother's  little  boy  daring  an  adventure  that 
might  well  test  many  a  man  of  courage  and  derring-do, 
hazardous  and  not  to  be  approved  nowadays.  Fairly 
piercing  the  skies,  lifted  the  taper-like  masts,  swaying 
in  the  winds,  rocking  to  the  wave,  over  the  dark,  swift- 
running  tide  and  the  cruel  deck  below,  littered  with  its 
machinery  and  pierced  by  its  open  hatches.  If  other 
boys  were  like  me,  it  was  no  place  for  mother's  little 
fair-haired  boy  of  fourteen.  Many  a  boy  who  went  the 
way  up  the  tall  masts,  did  a  feat  as  great  as  going  over 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES       237 

the  top — and  what  is  more,  he  did  it  purely  on  his  own 
courage,  not  in  the  company  of  others,  giving  him  sup- 
port. I  can  seem  to  see  myself,  very  tiny  in  those 
days,  quite  as  another  person,  given  the  test,  reaching 
into  the  main  shrouds  and  climbing  the  ratlines  to  the 
lubber-hole — a  pathetic  picture,  surely,  if  he  looked  as 
he  felt,  full  of  fear  and  yet  ever  going  on.  Some  boys 
took  to  the  lubber-hole — but  it  was  only  an  evasion, 
not  the  fullest  victory,  so,  out  he  swings  over  the  deck 
almost  horizontal  and  up  over  the  crest  to  the  first 
landing  pl?ce  on  the  main  cross-trees.  Up  here  the 
wind  blows  about  his  flapping  little  knee-breeches. 
Surely  mother  would  be  frightened  now.  Far  above 
rises  the  tiny  ball  of  gold,  almost  in  the  infinite  blue. 
He  well  may  pray  for  help ;  for  no  boy  will  call  him  back 
or  say  "that's  enough."  He  simply  MUST  go  on.  He 
never  knows  how  he  did  it — parched  mouth,  beating 
heart,  trembling  knees,  ringing  ears,  little  hands  fairly 
sinking  into  each  rope  with  the  energy  of  fear ;  and  at 
length  he  stands  pressed  against  the  ropes,  in  panic, 
at  the  second  station  of  his  journey. 

No  boy  knows  how  he  did  it  the  first  time.  He  only 
knows  that  he  went  on  and  on  and  on  and  finally 
reached  the  goal ;  putting  his  little  cap  on  the  gold  ball ; 
waving  it  over  the  earth  and  the  river  and  the  tiny  fig- 
ures below,  whose  cheers  came  faintly  up  to  the  dizzy 
height.  He  has  a  distinct  memory  of  looking  over  the 
city;  down  the  river  toward  the  sea  and  hearing  his 
beating  heart,  in  rapture  at  accomplishment,  and  feel- 
ing himself  say  to  the  little  chap  whose  soul  had  seem- 
ingly been  separated  from  his  physical  body,  "Good 
Boy !  You  have  done  it."  And  that  boy  was  I. 

What  was  it  good  for?  I  will  tell  you.  It  was  ac- 
complishment. It  was  forcing  the  body  to  yield  to  the 
soul.  It  was  compelling  fear  to  give  over  to  superior 
force.  It  was  teaching  a  boy  never  to  say  "I  can't;" 
but  rather,  "I  will."  It  was  putting  him  into  the  class 


238       JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

of  those  who  "do  things."  It  was  initiation  into  the 
society  of  the  American  Boy.  Many  a  time,  since 
then,  when  I  have  faced  difficulties  that  seemed  un- 
surmountable  as  that  mast,  I  have  said  to  myself 
proudly,  "I  capped  the  Main  Truck."  I  can  do  this 
thing  also! 


ON  "HAUNTED  ROOMS" 

HAVE  memories  of  a  little  old  room,  in  a  little 
old  house  that  I  roamed  thru  as  a  child, 
touching  here  and  there  sacred  things,  tim- 
idly and  as  a  wayward  child,  forbidden  of  the 
spot,  as  once,  indeed,  I  was. 

The  pictures  on  the  wall  shine  dimly,  and 
I  see  them  not  so  plainly  as  I  see  the  oval  glass  globe 
with  the  wax-flowers  in  it,  the  full-rigged  tiny  ship 
that  sat  on  the  old  marble-topped  table,  and  I  can  smell, 
too,  the  faint,  musty  odors  of  a  closed  room  and  the 
far-off  scent  of  lavender  and  see  the  light  struggling  in 
thru  the  blinds  that  shut  out  the  sun  from  fading  the 
old  ingrain  carpet. 

This  room,  so  common  to  old  homes  in  New  Eng- 
land, was  the  parlor,  with  never  a  use  except  its  setting 
aside  for  great  happenings,  connected  with  death,  re- 
ligion, ministers,  and  visits  from  personages.  Its  stiff- 
legged  cane-seat  chairs,  its  hair-cloth  sofa,  its  rocker 
with  the  silk  tatting  pinned  to  its  hair-cloth  back,  the 
carved  teeth  of  the  walrus  or  the  whale  on  the  mantel, 
the  old-fashioned  floral-emblem  autograph  albums,  its 
holy  Bible  on  the  center  table — this  was  a  sanctuary 
that  no  child  could  profane  except,  as  Bluebeard's  little 
boy,  liable  to  find  the  heads  of  other  adventurous  little 
boys,  hanging  to  the  hooks  of  the  closet,  therein.  Ah 
me !  The  story  of  the  old  parlors !  I  have  seen  them 
once  or  twice  opened  for  the  wedding — but  in  those 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES       239 

days,  every  daughter  preferred  to  be  wedded  under  the 
apple-trees;  but  never  was  an  ancestor  "laid  out"  in 
other  place.  And  so  the  old  parlor  brings  back  nothing 
else  so  plainly  as  the  cold,  still  forms  quiet  in  there, 
with  little  feet  of  strange-eyed  children  tiptoeing  in  to 
gaze  on  the  face  shrunken,  and  unnatural,  amid  the 
scent  of  old-fashioned  flowers.  Tiny  forms,  too,  in  lit- 
tle white  dresses  and  with  golden  hair  around  their 
faces,  once  tossing  about  the  place  in  play,  little  feet, 
so  soon  stayed  in  the  race  of  life !  "In  the  dim  cham- 
ber, whence  but  yesterday  passed  my  beloved,  filled 
with  awe  I  stand,  and  haunting  loves  fluttering  on 
every  hand  whisper  her  praises  who  is  far  away,"  said 
John  Hay.  And  it  is  all  very  true,  of  old  parlors. 

Very  like  haunted  rooms  in  the  memory  are  they. 
Full  of  strange,  half-forgotten  things.  I  doubt  not 
every  person  who  does  me  the  honor  of  reading  this  has 
one  of  these  rooms  in  memory  if  he  be  fifty  years  of 
age.  They  were  the  tribute  of  our  fathers  to  social  cus- 
tom, the  deference  paid  to  the  solemnities  of  life.  To 
come  into  being !  It  might  happen  anywhere.  To  go 
from  life — equally  so.  But  the  last  memorial  must 
have  a  place  to  fit  the  occasion.  And  so  they  set  aside 
the  best  for  this  last.  Here  also  all  ultimate  treasures 
of  life  went.  Here  the  strange  things  that  came  from 
overseas,  especially  in  seaport  towns,  were  stored;  the 
prized  offerings  brought  with  care  from  the  far  East  in 
ships  by  those  long  since  dead.  The  housewife  her- 
self rarely  stepped  within  its  portals  and  then  only  for 
careful  dusting  and  in  search  of  the  evasive  moth, 
which  might  corrupt.  Here  she  looked  with  pride 
upon  her  best  hoarding;  on  works  of  art,  of  doubtful 
value,  that,  to  her,  satisfied  the  longing  of  a  soul  that 
sought  better  things  than  kitchen  or  pantry  could 
afford.  Here  she  locked  her  woman's  heart.  Here 
she  hung  her  best  dress ;  here  she  kept  her  wedding 
secrets;  her  sentiment  unrevealed;  her  womanly 


240       JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

dreams ;  her  romances ;  her  visions ;  all  her  memories  of 
herself  as  a  girl-bride.  Here  grandmothers  came 
sometimes  and  wept.  Here  all  mourning  was  done  for 
death,  the  room  being  opened  in  sorrow,  as  the  upper 
chamber,  in  which  wept  the  father,  for  his  son 
Absalom. 

Haunted  rooms!  How  many  of  them  have  you? 
All  rooms  of  tragedy,  in  life  and  death — the  places 
where  souls  have  passed,  where  life  has  come,  where 
weddings  have  been,  where  the  little  white  bassinet 
has  stood,  where  the  first-born  has  started  on  the  long 
journey  most  quietly.  She  is  very  little  and  the  roads 
are  lying  in  wait  for  her  stirring  feet.  You  never  for- 
get the  scene.  It  is  full  of  pictures,  of  the  sun  on  the 
floor,  the  firelight  playing  from  the  fire-place,  the 
flowers  in  the  vase,  the  evening  lamp ! 

And  so,  tonight,  I  am  approaching  once  again  the 
little  old  parlor.  I  turn  the  knob  and  peer  within.  It 
is  dark  and  still.  The  light  from  the  other  room 
streams  over  the  threshhold.  Do  I  hear  the  voices  of 
them  who  once  were  there!  Maybe.  But  I  am  not 
afraid.  I  am  but  happy,  if  so  it  be. 


ON  "LOVING  THE  SCHOOLMARM" 

OU  have  been  in  love,  but  you  never  loved  any- 
one as  you  did  a  certain  schoolmarm  when 
you  were  a  -shock-chaired,  freckle-faced  school- 
boy a  good  many  years  ago.  Some  of  them 
you  hated  from  the  first  with  a  fierce  and 
consuming  hate,  but  one  of  them  you  fell  for 

and  you  loved — oh,  how  you  loved  her. 

Ten  to  one  she  was  fat  and  had  red  cheeks  and 

smooth  hair  and  her  figure !    Ye  gods !    What  a  figger ! 

When  she  came  into  school  for  the  first  time  your 

heart  stood  still.    You  were  consumed  with  passion! 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES       241 

You  could  not  see  straight.  You  couldn't  recite !  You 
couldn't  read — you  couldn't  think.  Here  was  Venus — 
only  you  didn't  know  anything  about  any  Venuses; — 
here  was  Hebe  and  Ganymede.  Here  was  Cleopatra 
and  Helen  of  Troy.  Here  was  your  chance!  If  you 
were  very  good  and  noble  and  brave  perhaps  she  would 
fall  in  love  with  you  and  then  no  knowing  what  might 
happen.  You  loved  her. 

There  is  no  adoration  like  the  boy-love,  aged  ten  to 
thirteen.  It  dares  all  heights,  even  twenty-eight  years 
of  maidenhood.  It  is  probable  that  she  was  bordering 
on  the  bank  of  thirty  years — when  the  maid  steps  over 
the  brink  into  old-maid  terrain.  As  for  you,  she  was 
just  right.  She  was  your  fate  if  you  could  only 
impress  the  fact  on  her  that  you  were  a  very  unusual 
boy.  You  would  study  hard ;  graduate  in  a  very  short 
time;  save  her  life  from  a  runaway  horse;  or  thru  a 
hole  in  the  ice;  or  you  would  go  to  sea  and  be  gone  a 
few  weeks  and  come  home  with  several  million  dollars 
and  then  you  would  clasp  her  in  your  arms  and  would 
whisper  love  to  her  and  she  would  be  yours.  Or  you 
would  become  a  great  general  in  some  war  and  win  her 
from  the  enemy  and  the  wedding  would  be  attended 
by  all  of  the  nobility. 

You  are  really  doing  very  well.  You  have  begun  to 
study.  She  notices  it  and  sends  you  on  errands,  her 
dulcet  voice  setting  your  heart  to  thumping  tremend- 
ously as  she  calls  out,  "William!  Please  come  for- 
ward." You  have  no  doubt  for  the  instant  that  she 
will  propose  elopement,  then  and  there,  conquered  by 
your  manly  graces.  She  wants  you  to  take  a  note  to 
some  other  teacher  in  some  other  school.  You  go  on 
tip-toes  and  do  not  stop  on  the  way.  Things  are 
coming  along.  You  keep  on  dreaming.  You  will  find 
her  out  some  night  helpless,  in  the  fierce  winter 
storm.  She  will  be  lying  exhausted  in  the  snow  and 
you  will  be  coming  along ;  tripping  gaily  thru  the  five- 


242       JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

foot  drifts,  brushing  the  snows  away  like  a  rotary  plow. 
You  will  see  her  fair  form  reclining  before  you.  You 
will  lift  her  187  pounds  like  a  feather — you  who  weigh 
73  Ibs.  You  will  carry  her  fainting  thru  the  storm. 
She  will  be  rescued.  Nothing  doing  but  wedlock. 

If  you  can  be  called  to  the  front  for  some  minor 
offense  and  get  a  seat  under  the  schoolmarm's  desk — 
it  is  not  so  bad.  Good  behavior  does  not  seem  to  bring 
about  the  wedding-bells,  so  you  will  be  a  devil.  You 
can  get  the  seat  all  right.  There  is  usually  a  waiting- 
list  under  the  schoolmarm's  desk.  But  you  are  per- 
sistent and  you  get  there.  It  is  dusty  but  you  are  near 
her.  You  become  careless  in  your  lessons.  You  get 
a  licking  from  her.  Excellent !  Never  hurt  a  bit.  A 
whaling  from  those  fair  hands — a  pastime!  Come 
again.  A  man  can't  be  bothered  with  arithmetic  when 
passion  storms  thru  his  veins  like  a  roaring  flame  thru 
a  burning  city.  It  is  tragedy.  Many  a  boy  has  known 
it — schoolmarms  with  plump  figures,  neat  shoes  and 
spring  gowns  having  no  conception  of  the  amorous- 
ness flaming  around  them  in  evil-smelling  boys.  You  get 
morose  at  home.  Nobody  understands  you.  Your 
father  and  mother  don't  understand  you.  You  are 
about  tired  with  life  anyway.  Something  has  got  to 
happen  pretty  darn  quick. 

And  it  does  happen.  Some  day  a  red-headed 
farmer  comes  to  school  and  calls  for  the  schoolmarm 
with  a  red  sleigh  and  a  good  stepping  horse.  She 
blushes  all  over.  He  gets  her  to  let  school  out  earlier. 
He  carts  her  off.  Another  boy  says,  "It's  her  feller." 
He  knew.  You  contemplate  suicide  vigorously.  Next 
day  when  she  licks  you  you  kick  at  her  shins — those 
erstwhile  darling  shins  garbed  in  white.  Hooray! 
It  is  all  over  and  you  are  redeemed.  You  are  again 
happy.  You  hate  the  teacher.  Now  for  study  and  fun ! 


ON  "THE  DOG  ON  THE  BRIDGE" 

DOG  was  coming  over  North  Bridge  in  Lewis- 
ton  yesterday  noon.  I  say  he  was  coming — 
he  was  not  coming  very  fast  because  he  was 
afraid.  He  was  a  fine-looking,  long-eared 
hound,  and  as  he  walked  along  the  bridge,  his 
eyes  caught  the  gleam  of  the  river  far  below 
thru  the  cracks  between  the  planking,  and  at  once,  to 
his  eyes,  the  cracks  widened  and  the  boards  narrowed 
and  there  he  was  hanging,  between  life  and  death,  as 
he  saw  it,  crouching  and  whining  and  picking  his  way 
from  plank  to  plank. 

It  was  all  a  matter  of  perspective.  The  dog  had 
his  nose  and  eyes  too  near  to  the  ground.  He  failed 
of  a  proper  angle  of  observation.  A  young  woman 
passed  us  as  I  was  trying  to  toll  the  dog  along.  Her 
head  was  high.  She  wore  ear-rings ;  had  golden  hair ; 
was  looking  pretty  fine,  thank  you;  marching  off  in 
short  skirts  and  greenish  yellow  hose  all  the  world  like 
a  couple  of  inverted  Poland  Water  bottles.  She  never 
saw  any  river  under  the  bridge.  The  poor  dog  could 
see  nothing  else. 

We  get  a  great  deal  of  worry  by  not  looking  at 
things  in  a  larger  way  than  we  sometimes  do.  If  you 
hold  a  silver  dollar  up  close  to  your  eye,  you  can  see 
nothing  but  the  dollar.  If  you  hold  a  doughnut  up 
against  your  eye,  hole  in  front,  you  miss  the  doughnut. 
There  is  a  great  art  in  life  in  focusing  your  troubles  as 
well  as  your  joys.  It  is  better  to  look  at  a  wild  beast 
from  a  distance  than  to  go  up  and  look  him  in  the  eye. 
He  may  run  off  and  never  come  your  way,  in  the  first 
case.  In  the  second  case,  he  may  bite  you.  A  lion  in 
the  offing  is  not  the  whole  world.  A  lion  in  arms,  tail 
up,  six  feet  away,  may  be  the  end  of  the  world. 


244       JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

And  further — what  a  folly  to  see  things  only  as 
things.  The  dog  saw  the  water,  but  not  in  relation  to 
the  bridge  nor  did  he  see  the  bridge  in  relation  to  the 
safe  conduct  of  society  across  the  river.  There  are 
many  people  whom  this  war  has  made  ill  by  mere  fore- 
boding. I  do  not  mean  those  who  have  loved  ones  in 
danger — that  is  another  matter.  I  refer  to  those 
persons  who  see  nothing  in  the  war  but  the  water 
flowing  under  the  bridge ;  nothing  but  the  distance  that 
the  world  may  plunge.  They  have  their  eyes  too  close 
to  the  war.  They  should  see  that  the  war  is  a  fore- 
ordained end  of  a  wicked  philosophy — the  philosophy 
of  the  Superman.  They  should  see  that  in  the  great 
movement  of  world  evolution,  this  war  is  but  a  chap- 
ter— the  chapter  of  regeneration  and  readjustment. 
They  should  see  that  it  is  not  the  end  of  society,  but 
the  beginning  of  a  new  society,  better  than  the  old. 
Terrible  as  it  is,  we  must  not  look  at  it  as  of  this  age 
only.  It  is  the  medicine  of  a  world  that  is  to  endure 
thruout  the  ages. 

You  may  apply  this  plan  in  every-day  life  very 
sensibly.  Half  of  the  troubles  that  men  and  women 
get  into  are  from  not  lifting  their  heads  and  looking 
over  the  situation  before  they  decide  to  boil  over  with 
anger.  In  all  quarrels  there  are  two  sides.  Try  to  see 
them  both.  We  get  into  a  lot  of  difficulty  by  pre- 
judging the  motives  of  others.  We  make  a  lot  of 
mistakes  by  deciding  for  ourselves  how  other  people 
are  likely  to  decide  for  themselves.  We  may  well 
decide  to  look  about  a  bit ;  see  what  is  under  our  feet ; 
feel  the  tread  of  the  planks  under  us ;  watch  the  yellow- 
haired  girls  marching  bravely  on ;  consider  that  if  you 
fall  you  will  have  to  crawl  thru  a  pretty  small  crack 
and  let  it  go  at  that,  with  an  appeal  to  the  best  judg- 
ment you  have. 

But  whatever  you  do,  get  your  perspective.  Do  not 
blind  yourselves  with  troubles  or  fool  yourselves  look- 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES       245 

ing  thru  the  hole  in  the  doughnut.    It  takes  equanimity 
to  preserve  equilibrium. 

And  after  the  dog  got  off  the  bridge,  he  barked  and 
capered  and  ran  away  like  the  wind.  You  see!  He 
had  been  delayed  on  his  journey  by  his  fancied 
troubles.  If  you  see  the  point — it's  yours,  gratis. 


ON  "WOMAN" 

INGE  one  may  never  foresee  all  of  the  state- 
ments of  a  woman,  the  wisest  policy  is  not 
to  take  the  trouble  to  see  any  of  them. 
Woman's  cruelest  revenge  is  often  to  remain 
faithful  to  a  man.  Women  should  remem- 
ber their  origin  and  constantly  think  of 
themselves  as  a  supernumerary  bone.  As  women 
always  know  their  own  greatness,  it  is  their  smalmess 
that  we  should  divine.  A  woman's  logic  is  remarkable 
in  its  simplicity;  it  consists  in  expressing  one  idea 
and  reiterating  it,  endlessly. 

A  man  tells  what  he  knows,  a  woman  tells  what  is 
pleasing;  a  man  talks  with  knowledge,  a  woman  talks 
with  taste.  A  man  never  knows  how  to  live  until  a 
woman  has  lived  with  him.  The  Queen  of  Sheba  had 
only  one  eye,  but  she  had  a  great  heart. 

"I  shall  not  decide  what  is  the  first  merit  of  woman ; 
but  ordinarily  the  first  question  which  is  asked  about 
woman  is,  "Is  she  beautiful?"  The  second,  "Has  she 
wit?"  There  is  nothing  good  about  woman,  except 
what  is  best  in  her.  A  woman  may  be  homely,  ill- 
shaped,  ignorant,  but  ridiculous,  never.  A  woman 
betrays  you,  she  kills  you,  but  she  cries  for  you.  Yet 
woman  is  the  crime  of  man !  She  has  been  his  victim 
since  Eden.  She  wears  on  her  flesh  the  trace  of  six 
thousand  years.  There  are  women  who  have  made 
themselves  miserable  for  life,  for  a  man  whom  they 


246       JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

have  ceased  to  love,  because  he  has  badly  cut  his  nails 
or  badly  taken  off  his  coat  in  company.  A  man  is 
therefore  responsible  for  his  entire  wife. 

The  one  who  may  govern  a  woman,  may  govern  a 
nation.  Yet  you  should  have  a  horror  of  instruction 
of  woman  for  the  reason  so  well  understood  in  Spain, 
that  it  is  easier  to  govern  a  people  of  idiots  than  a 
people  of  learned  men.  Politics  in  married  life  con- 
sists of  three  principles:  The  first  is,  never  believe 
what  a  woman  says;  second,  try  to  understand  the 
spirit  of  her  actions;  and  third,  do  not  forget  that  a 
woman  is  never  so  talkative  as  when  she  keeps  silent, 
and  never  so  active  as  when  she  is  at  rest.  Women 
possess  better  than  men  the  art  of  analyzing  the  two 
human  sentiments  with  which  they  are  armed  against 
us.  They  have  the  instinct  of  love,  because  it  is  their 
life,  and  of  jealousy  because  it  is  the  only  means  which 
they  have  to  rule  over  us.  And  yet  the  first  and  most 
important  quality  of  woman  is  sweetness.  All  of  the 
reasons  of  a  man  are  not  worth  one  sentiment  from  a 
woman.  A  homely  woman,  who  is  also  good,  is  an 
angel  and  should  be  beatified.  A  beautiful  woman, 
who  is  also  good,  should  have  four  pairs  of  wings  and 
two  motors.  A  homely  woman  may  be  wicked,  but  she 
is  never  silly  about  it.  And  a  beautiful  woman  can 
never  be  silly,  provided  the  man  is  sufficiently  in  love. 
Beauty  covers  a  multitude  of  sins. 

As  to  woman's  wisdom!  Women  should  never  be 
permitted  to  go  to  church.  What  sort  of  conversation 
can  they  hold  with  God  ?  In  what  way  are  women  in- 
ferior to  men?  Is  it  not  the  fact  that  they  shook 
before  him  the  tree  of  science?  The  Greeks  who 
created  all  the  gods,  symbolized  wisdom  by  Minerva. 
Atheism  is  the  horizon  of  bad  consciences.  There 
never  was  a  woman  atheist.  Thanks  to  Eve,  who 
shook  the  tree  of  science,  women  know  everything 
without  having  learned  anything.  In  wisdom,  all  of 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES       247 

the  Eves  and  Magdalenes  are  novels  of  which  one 
should  read  only  the  prefaces.  To  read  all  the  chap- 
ters would  take  too  long.  To  skip  pages  is  risky.  Yet 
one  who  has  read  the  book  called  woman,  knows  more 
than  the  one  who  has  grown  pale  in  libraries.  Ulti- 
mately, woman  is  the  reason  of  man.  If  it  be  woman 
who  shows  the  way  to  heaven,  it  is  woman  who  makes 
one  love  earth.  And  nevertheless,  there  are  women 
who  are  only  gowns.  What  are  you  going  to  do  about 
it?  Keep  a  bulldog? 

And  of  woman's  love,  a  million  words  would  be  but 
as  one,  compared  to  the  words  written  of  it.  On  the 
maternal  bosom,  rest  the  wit  of  nations,  their  preju- 
dices and  their  virtues — in  other  words,  human  civili- 
zation. In  the  thought  of  God  there  are  only  two 
women  to  be  involved  in  the  life  of  a  man :  his  mother 
and  the  mother  of  his  children.  Many  women  live 
and  die  by  the  heart.  There  are  men ;  there  is  woman. 
Woman  is  queen  of  creation.  A  woman's  real  love  is 
like  piety.  It  comes  late  in  life.  A  woman  is  rarely 
devout  or  in  love  at  twenty.  Women  wish  to  be  loved ; 
and  when  they  ?re,  they  are  often  annoyed  or  worse. 
They  flirt;  to  flirt  is  to  love,  in  water-colors.  Love  is 
poetry,  but  marriage  is  an  exact  science.  Some  women 
marry  from  tradition  and  then  wake  up  to  find  it  per- 
dition. If  you  are  going  to  love,  pass  up  your  judg- 
ment. Finally,  woman  and  her  love  and  all  that,  are 
the  Alpha  and  the  Omega,  hell  and  paradise,  good  and 
evil,  the  fall  and  the  redemption. 

There!  Think  over  that.  It  is  strictly  a  collabora- 
tion, out  of  my  note  book,  culled  from  reading  and 
selection.  Each  of  them  is  an  epigram.  They  are 
strung  together,  like  pearls  and  paste,  on  the  same 
string.  They  are  good  and  bad  indifferently.  A  few 
of  them  I  wrote  myself.  They  are  no  worse  or  better 
than  the  others.  And  probably  no  more  or  less  true. 
If  you  sniff  at  any  one  of  them  remember,  you  may  be 


248       JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

sniffing  at  Baudelaire,  or  Anatole  France,  or  Paul 
Sabatier,  or  Voltaire,  or  Jean  Jaques,  the  old  dear;  or 
at  Ben  Franklin,  or  at  Thackeray,  or  at  Solomon,  or  at 
the  Book  of  Judges.  So  bear  with  me  for  a  bit  of  fun ; 
and  tomorrow,  I  will  write  strictly  of  moral  things. 


ON  "GIVING  ADVICE,  GRATIS" 

LADY  friend  of  mine  is  in  trouble.  She  went 
to  the  doctor  the  other  day  for  purposes  of 
pulchritude.  She  is  a  comely  lady,  anyway, 
and  needn't  have  worried. 

But  she  went ;  and  came  back  to  her  home 
in  one  of  these  cities — I  prefer  not  to  locate  it 
too  closely — with  two  bottles  of  medicine ;  one  was  pink 
and  the  other  was  greenish.  One  was  to  make  the  hair 
grow  on  her  beautiful  head ;  the  other  was  to  make  the 
flesh  of  her  fair  arms  yet  more  peachy,  and  remove  all 
hirsute  disfigurement. 

Women  are  often  careful.  Some  women  are  very 
much  more  careful  than  some  men.  Carelessness  is 
not  a  sex-characteristic.  I  have  seen  men  so  thought- 
less that  they  couldn't  remember  that  socks  should  be 
of  one  color,  i.e.,  that  no  well-dressed  man  should  wear 
one  green,  one  blue.  No  woman  would  do  that. 
Women  rarely  are  careless  about  color.  They  usually 
harmonize  tints.  But  when  a  woman  IS  thoughtless 
she  can  beat  man  all  the  way  from  sole  to  dandruff. 
This  friend  of  mine  is  so  busy  about  being  kind  and 
generous,  as  a  rule,  that  she  forgets  details.  So  when 
she  got  home  and  told  about  her  visit  to  the  beauty- 
doctor  and  about  what  he  said  and  didn't  say,  and  had 
produced  the  hair-medicine  and  the  face  and  arm  medi- 
cine— the  one  warranted  to  make  hair  grow  and  the 
other  warranted  to  remove  it,  she  had  only  an  indis- 
tinct memory  of  the  purpose  of  each.  She  wasn't 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES       249 

quite  sure  whether  the  pink  or  the  green  produced  long 
and  luxurious  curly  locks  or  removed  them,  or  vice 
versa. 

Said  I,  "Wallace  Maxfield  used  to  make  a  hair 
restorer  and  it  was  green.  I  wish  you  had  some  of 
that,  and  if  I  had  thought  of  it  in  time  I  could  have 
saved  you  a  trip  to  the  doctor ;  for  his  was  a  wonderful 
'invigorator.'  We  used  to  treat  it  very  carefully. 
Wallace  never  handled  it  without  gloves  for  fear  of 
beating  out  Esau.  He  got  some  on  his  finger-nails 
once  and  the  hair  grew  out  all  over  them.  If  he  had 
cared,  he  could  have  grown  hair  enough  on  the  end  of 
his  thumb  to  have  made  it  do  duty  as  a  shaving-brush. 

"Mercy !"  exclaimed  the  lady. 

"Yes,"  continued  I,  "he  got  some  by  accident  on  the 
doorknob  of  his  old  shop  once — one  of  those  white 
china  doorknobs,  and  he  had  to  shave  the  doorknob 
every  day  for  a  week  until  the  effect  of  the  stuff  wore 
off.  That  was  greenish  in  color.  Then  he  had  a 
detergent — I  think  it  was  pinkish.  That  worked  just 
as  well  the  other  way.  He  could  wave  a  bottle  of  this 
over  a  hair  mattress,  then :  Excelsior !  there  would  not 
be  a  hair  in  it.  Customers  used  to  bring  old  buffalo 
coats  in  to  be  treated.  He  could  drop  about  twenty 
drops  of  this  on  a,  patchy  old  buffalo  coat  and  take  the 
hair  off  of  it  smooth  and  clean  where  partially  worn, 
and  then  by  applying  the  "invigorator"  which  was 
greenish,  the  buffalo  hair  would  grow  within  twenty 
minutes,  restoring  it  to  its  original  beauty.  Trouble 
was  the  stuff  was  too  powerful.  I  wish — " 

"Then  you  think  that  probably  the  greenish  is  the 
prescription  for  my  head,"  said  the  lady.  "Then  that 
settles  it." 

It  did  settle  it,  and  so  far  as  I  can  see,  settled  it  all 
right.  The  lady  called  at  our  house  Sunday  to  see  me 
and  ask  somewhat  excitedly  if  I  saw  any  difference  in 
her  appearance.  I  told  her  that  she  looked  beautiful, 


250      JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

as  usual,  but  that  perhaps  there  was  a  bit  of  extra  gloss 
on  her  upper  lip  and  was  it  swollen,  and  what  was  the 
matter  with  the  high  lights  on  her  nose,  and  did  she 
have  a  cold  that  made  her  eyes  look  a  little  swollen. 
And  what  was — 

"Apart  from  that  I'm  all  right?"  exclaimed  she. 
"Well,  I  want  you  to  know  that  you  told  me  all  wrong. 
I've  been  using  hair  medicine  on  my  face  and  skin 
remedy  on  my  hair,  and  I'm  so  worried  I  don't  know 
what  to  do.  The  pink  medicine  is  'invigorator,'  as  you 
call  it,  and  the  other  is  the  opposite,  and  I  expect  from 
all  you  have  said  to  have  whiskers  on  my  face  and  a 
nice,  glossy,  peachy  skin  on  the  top  of  my  head,  and 
hair  on  my  arms  and  a  mustache,  and  I'll  have  to  shave 
and  wear  a  wig  and — oh,  it's  all  your  fault,  boo,  hoo !" 

This  is  my  situation  and  the  state  of  mind  in  which 
I  find  myself  this  Monday  morning  on  returning  to  my 
duties.  The  moral  that  I  want  to  bring  to  you,  dear 
reader,  is  to  beware  of  my  failing,  which  is  giving 
advice,  except  for  pay.  More  friendships  have  been 
broken  by  advising  persons  unprofessionally  on  mooted 
points,  than  any  other  way.  If  you  make  a  charge  it 
is  different.  You  are  then  protected  by  the  law  of 
caveat  emptor.  You  know  there  was  Cassandra. 
Apollo  loved  her,  but  she  threw  him  down.  The  god  got 
mad  and  he  made  Cassandra  a  confirmed  advice-giver, 
free,  too,  without  charge,  a  she-prophet;  with  this 
condition,  nobody  would  ever  follow  her  predictions. 
She  was  always  dead  right.  She  knew,  did  Cassandra, 
but  nobody  believed  her.  Most  of  us  are  unlike 
Cassandra.  And  that's  the  danger.  The  New  Year 
is  on !  Let's  all  take  a  brace  and  only  give  advice  as 
a  matter  of  business,  at  so  much  per  diem  or  per  advice, 
office  hours  and  all  that. 

As  yet  there  is  a  chance  for  you  to  avoid  danger  and 
perhaps  for  me  to  escape.  The  lady  is  not  yet  bald 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES       251 

nor  does  she  bear  any  resemblance  to  Charles  E. 
Hughes;  but  if  she  develops  later  and  you  follow  my 
fate  and  it  compares  with  Cassandra,  you  will  see  why 
things  look  gloomy  to  me. 


ON  "OLD  PICTURES  IN  THE  JUNK  SHOP" 


N  A  CERTAIN  junk-store  in  Lewiston  are  two 
pictures  in  mahogany  frames  of  fifty  years 
ago;  sturdy  faces  of  a  man  and  a  woman, 
looking  out  on  the  busy  street.  They  are 
photographs  of  a  fine  up-standing,  prosperous 
couple,  some  countryfolk  of  a  generation 
long  since  gone. 

One  cannot  pass  this  shop  without  seeing  these 
pictures,  thus  disposed  for  sale  among  the  other  junk; 
and  thus  seeing  them  one  must  feel  a  sense  of  sadness 
at  this  desecration  of  some  home  that  from  the  look  of 
these  faces,  must  have  been  once  prosperous  and 
happy. 

What  fate  has  sent  the  portraits  of  these  people 
into  such  a  shop,  to  be  put  up  for  sale?  Is  it  not 
monstrous  that  relatives  and  friends  did  not  consign 
them  at  least  to  the  happier  fate  of  destruction? 
There  must  have  been  some  heir  or  residuary  legatee 
who  had  the  power  silently  to  lay  away  these  venerable 
faces  and  let  them  be  forgot,  if  there  be  none,  who 
now  would  care  to  recall  them.  How  short  is  human 
love ;  how  soon  passes  consideration  even  for  the  mem- 
ories of  the  dead ! 

The  other  day  we  saw  a  string  of  gold  beads  in  the 
possession  of  a  great  granddaughter.  She  had  small 
regard  for  them  and  spoke  slightingly  of  them.  But  I 
could  recall  the  picture  of  a  fragile  little  grandmother, 
sitting  in  a  low  chair  by  a  window  in  a  warm  mid-sum- 
mer afternoon.  A  huge  willow  tree  brushed  the  little 


252       JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

window  to  the  west  and  the  low  hum  of  bees  was  in  a 
hive  just  outside,  among  all  the  clover  tops  that  the 
world  could  seemingly  ever  grow.  There  was  caraway 
in  the  tall,  straggling  bushes,  by  the  side  of  the  willow- 
trunk,  and  away  and  away  over  the  hills  and  beyond 
their  purple  rims,  was  the  World,  to  me.  The  Gospel 
Banner,  a  stout  Universalist  weekly,  lay  in  her  lap  and 
her  hands  were  folded.  Around  her  neck  was  this 
string  of  gold  beads — and  never  day  or  night  was  she 
without  them.  They  should  have  been  buried  with 
her  as  she  sat  hands  folded,  all  mysteries  solved,  at 
Peace. 

And  so  it  is  with  the  old  pictures  and  the  old  photo- 
graph albums  that  are  found  kicking  around  in  the  old 
book-stores  or  piled  away  in  attics.  If  they  could 
speak  and  the  beating  hearts  once  more  be  revived 
and  with  them  all  the  pleasure,  love  and  hope  that  once 
these  photographs  carried,  we  should  hear  stout 
objection  to  the  neglect  to  which  they  are  now  sub- 
jected. These  pictures  that  are  found  in  the  old  junk 
shop — it  takes  little  to  re-create  the  scene  as  the  old 
father  and  mother  went  happily  away  to  the  photogra- 
pher's to  have  these  pictures  made,  as  a  memorial  to 
loving  children.  It  may  have  been  the  consummation 
of  some  wedding  anniversary;  some  tribute  to  the 
hanging  of  the  crane  in  the  young  manhood  and 
womanhood  when  all  of  the  world  lay  before  them  and 
all  was  bright  with  love  and  courage.  It  takes  little, 
as  I  say,  to  re-create  the  happy  home ;  the  evening  fire- 
side ;  the  tender  care  of  children ;  the  patient  labor  over 
little  frocks  and  baby-things ;  the  weary  toil  for  better 
conditions;  the  sacrifices  for  schooling;  the  passing  out 
into  the  world  of  the  young ;  the  loneliness  of  age ;  and 
now  this!  Better  oblivion  than  the  disgrace  of  the 
junk-shop. 

I  should  hope  that  a  law  might  be  passed  against 
sale  of  the  intimate  mortuary  things  of  men — intimate 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES       253 

pictures,  the  stones  over  the  graves  of  the  dead.  It  is 
hard  to  contemplate  what  may  happen  to  our  own. 
"What  song  the  syrens  sang  or  what  name  Achilles 
assumed  when  he  hid  himself  among  the  women,"  as 
Sir  Thomas  Browne  says,  were  easier  to  know  than 
what  shall  become  of  us  as,  looking  our  best,  believing 
that  there  are  those  that  love  us,  we  consign  ourselves 
to  the  photographer  and  send  down  thru  the  ages  a 
very  capable  looking  simulacrum.  We  may  be  very 
proud  of  it  and  hope  for  a  tender  consideration  until 
at  least  it  shall  have  grown  old-fashioned.  But  the 
pictures  that  we  frame  in  mahogany  and  hang  on  the 
wall  and  consecrate  to  the  household  gods  and  expect 
to  be  respected — what  mercy  is  shown  by  those  that 
come  after  us,  if  in  the  hour,  when  the  old  home  shall 
be  broken  up  and  the  roof -tree  vanish  and  the  soul  go 
out  of  the  home,  some  kindly  hand  put  not  the  torch  to 
the  intimate  things  and  lay  our  mahogany-framed 
likeness  on  some  funeral-pyre  to  send  up  in  flames 
what  was  once  the  spirit  of  the  home.  Dust  and  ashes ! 
Better  than  a  junk-shop  and  a  ten-cent  sale! 


ON  "THE  WOODS  OF  GOD" 

T  IS  calling — I  can  hear  it — all  over  the  land 
they  are  hearing  it  and,  afar  off  where  the 
guns  are  roaring  and  the  shells  are  boring 
into  the  soil  of  France,  they  are  hearing  it — 
the  call  of  the  woods  of  Maine. 

I  saw  a  letter  the  other  day,  from  a  boy 
over  there.  Said  he,  "Dad,  I  am  happy  over  here,  doing 
what  I  feel  to  be  my  duty,  but,  next  to  seeing  you  and 
mother,  is  the  desire  that  I  feel  to  set  out  with  you,  in 
the  crisp,  frosty  morning  of  one  of  our  late  October 
days  for  the  good  old  trip  to  the  woods.  We'll  have  it 
yet,  in  peace  and  plenty.  And  we'll  never  kill  another 


254      JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

living  thing — just  the  woods,  the  silent  woods,  the 
woods  of  God." 

Yes — it's  calling !  Tugging  at  the  heart-strings  of 
men,  buried  half  underground  in  machine-rooms,  press- 
rooms, under  the  hatches  of  ships;  in  factories;  in 
counting  rooms ;  in  shops ;  in  banks ;  in  schools ;  out  on 
treeless  plains.  Only  the  other  day  I  met  a  man,  deep 
down  in  the  thunder  of  the  roaring  presses  of  a 
Boston  newspaper,  head-pressman,  never  saw  him 
before;  had  not  talked  with  him  two  minutes  when, 
finding  that  I  came  from  Maine,  he  said:  "I  go  every 
spring  to  Kennebago  to  fish,  every  fall  to  the  woods  of 
Maine  to  sit  in  the  silence  and  see  the  big  trees.  I 
work  for  that."  And  his  eyes  lighted  and  he  was  poet, 
philosopher,  dreamer  all  at  once,  as  he  is,  by  the  way, 
the  star  pressman  of  Boston. 

What  is  it  that  calls?  It  is  the  lure  of  perfect 
peace,  unstained  by  man — that  is  what!  When  the 
rifle  rings  and  the  deer  falls  and  man  advances  on  him, 
with  knife  to  flesh  and  blood  to  run — the  heaven 
becomes  a  little  hell.  But  not  for  long!  The  trees 
look  down  in  silent  contempt ;  the  winds  go  over  softly 
sighing;  the  chickadee  hops  along  with  his  old  foolish 
plaint ;  the  blue  jay  chatters  in  the  tall  tops ;  and  under- 
foot— are  the  silence,  slow-gathering  moss,  deep  decay, 
death  and  birth,  unto  which  man  may  come  in  rever- 
ence and  depart  in  peace.  This  is  the  lure  for  them 
that  truly  love  it,  this  is  the  call  that  never  will  cease 
its  reiteration. 

The  woods  of  God!  Singularly,  the  most  irrever- 
ent feels  that.  I  read  the  other  day  a  story  of  three 
men  who  traveled  in  mighty  places  where  great  trees 
lifted  their  heads  and  great  hills  stood  on  end  and  deep 
lakes  bosomed  themselves  in  mountain  fastnesses. 
One  of  them  was  an  atheist.  For  him,  there  was  no 
God.  Wherever  he  went,  he  explained  everything  by 
science;  scoffing  at  enthusiasms  until  his  lowly  guides 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES       255 

with  nothing  but  time-worn  faiths,  were  silent. 
Finally  they  came  to  a  place  of  surpassing  beauty; 
glory  piled  on  glory;  peaks  in  the  blue;  trees  on  the 
peaks ;  colors  of  jade  and  gold  and  all  of  the  spectrum 
— and  they  stood  in  silent  awe,  until  the  lowliest  guide 
of  all  broke  the  silence  with  a  shout,  "Mebbe,  sir,  there 
ain't  no  God  NOW;  but  by  thunder  there  WAS  once." 

So  you  feel  in  the  woods.  It  is  a  tryst  with  your 
soul.  It  is  a  visit  to  the  shrine  of  the  Most  High.  It 
is  the  solitude  of  the  association  with  the  Unseen. 
It  is  a  breath  out  of  the  dawn  of  the  hereafter,  whence 
cometh  the  healing.  To  sit  on  a  mossy  log  amid  the 
gathering  snow-flakes,  miles  from  camp;  to  wander  in 
the  twilight  over  hard  paths  and  see  the  rabbit  run 
and  hear  the  partridge  gathering  her  brood ;  to  see  the 
colors  run  in  the  undergrowth  from  pale  pink  to  thin 
mauve  and  bleak  gray ;  to  hear  the  winds  overhead ;  to 
feel  the  smart  tug  of  the  frosty  night — to  see  at  last 
the  lights  of  camp  break  thru  the  forests  and  be  home 
again !  It  is  religion  and  everything  else  combined. 

Weariness  not  often  cometh  to  the  flesh  alone.  It 
is  to  the  intellectual  and  the  spiritual  elements  of  a 
man  that  it  first  comes.  The  "pep"  is  the  first  to  go 
and  that  is  in  the  dynamo.  In  the  woods  of  Maine  are 
all  the  balsams  for  the  healing  of  the  heart  of  man. 
The  chase,  if  you  will,  for  impulse — the  Woods,  if  you 
seek  the  real  thing  for  your  regeneration.  It  is  the 
"pep"  that  first  comes  back  to  you.  And  when  the  big 
woods  go — what  will  men  do?  We  know  not.  Better 
than  drugs  are  they.  Those  who  determine  destinies 
of  simple  folk  must  not  forget  this.  Sad  the  day  when 
Nations  forget  that  "Back  to  Nature"  is  a  primordial 
command.  Sad  the  day — if  we  do  not  provide  for  all 
time,  taverns  in  the  forests  for  the  rest  of  weary  mind 
and  soul — great  forest  preserves,  parks  in  primeval 
state,  by  running  waters  in  deep  woods  of  God. 


ON  "MAINE  IN  AUTUMN" 

HIS  is  the  season  when  Maine  stands  on  the 
hill-tops  looking  out  over  the  autumn  world. 
She  has  left  the  summer  highway,  the  fields 
waving  in  the  sunshine,  the  brooks  running 
sweetly  to  the  sea ;  the  sea,  itself,  she  has  left 
gray  and  whitening  in  the  winds — to  stand 
up  here,  like  a  woman  in  scarlet,  waiting  for  the  snow- 
flakes  to  drive  her  in. 

She  is  fair  above  all  others,  is  Maine,  in  this  Octo- 
ber season.  No  other  land  compares  with  her.  I  have 
seen  Colorado  in  the  Autumn,  with  the  yellow  aspens 
in  the  mountain  tops.  Up  crest  and  down  they  run, 
ever  the  same  ceaseless  yellow  of  the  buttercup.  But 
what  is  that  by  the  side  of  the  hills  of  Maine?  She  is 
like  the  woman  of  the  Song  of  Solomon,  "Thy  lips  are 
like  the  thread  of  scarlet;  honey  and  milk  are  under 
thy  tongue ;  the  smell  of  thy  garments  is  like  the  smell 
of  Lebanon.  Awake!  O,  North  wind;  come!  thou 
South."  From  hill  to  hill  Maine  flaunts  her  ribands. 
From  peak  to  peak,  flames  the  curve  of  her  lips.  In 
valley  and  on  hillsides  spread  her  garments,  of  all  the 
colors  of  the  celestial  dye-pots.  And  there  she  stands, 
like  the  apocalypse  of  a  sunset  of  the  gods!  What 
pageantry !  what  beauty,  here  in  Maine ! 

Autumn!  already  the  first  storms  of  an  approach- 
ing winter  have  swept  the  land.  The  black  willows 
stand  bare  along  the  edges  of  the  river.  The  last 
summer  guest  is  packing  for  home.  The  only  sound 
of  the  outside  world  is  the  dull  throb  of  the  sportsman's 
gun  in  the  distant  thickets  and  the  passing  of  the  auto- 
mobile, loaded  with  sportsmen  bound  for  the  deep 
woods  for  the  big  game.  The  deer  have  left  the  fields 
for  the  forests  and  are  skirting  the  ridges  where  the 
beech-trees  stand,  dun  brown  or  deep  yellow  in  the 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES       257 

amber  light  of  the  October  sun.  The  trout  have  said 
good-bye  to  the  angler  for  another  six  months.  The 
bear  is  looking  over  the  fields  and  standing  perchance 
on  some  lonely  hill,  feeling  the  tingle  of  the  evening 
approach,  th&t  suggests  a  snug  hole  in  a  winter's  sleep. 
The  air  is  very  still.  The  fine  sound  of  crickets  that 
one  hears  in  September  has  gone,  and  no  longer  the 
late  grasshopper  rises  in  clouds  under  foot.  Afar,  thru 
a  red  haze  of  maple-leaves  you  may  see  the  smoke  of 
some  distant  towns,  but  what  are  towns  by  the  side  of 
these  hills,  clothed  in  raiment  ecstatic,  radiant,  flaming 
as  the  fires  of  the  northern  lights  where  the  Hyper- 
borean gods  are  burning  brush-fires  till  all  the  fire 
departments  of  Heaven  cannot  stop  them. 

It  is  not  for  any  writer  of  halting  prose  or  for  any 
minor  poet,  to  describe  this  glorious  land  of  ours — 
Maine — in  October.  It  seems  an  anomaly,  that  when 
poets  seek  simile,  they  go  to  Capri  or  Ischia  or  the  Vale 
of  Chamouni,  when  they  might  come  up  here  into  the 
vestibule  of  Heaven,  and  get  the  pictures  for  their 
fancy.  The  maple-tree,  standing  red  against  the  green 
of  the  spruce,  whose  pyramidal  tops  rise  as  out  of  a 
garden  of  poppies  and  roses  and  all  other  fervid  color, 
is  of  itself  enough  to  bring  one  ten  thousand  miles  to 
see.  The  "clear  bright  scarlet  leaves  of  the  sumac 
hang  down  like  a  soldier's  sash,"  said  Thoreau.  I  have, 
myself,  seen  from  the  shores  of  Moosehead  a  line  of  ten 
million,  million  colors  stretching  forty  miles  away. 
And  I  saw  it  yet  again,  reflected  in  the  mirrored  surface 
of  the  lake  on  whose  blue  surface  the  clouds  of  the  sky 
floated!  And  back  of  this,  piled  up,  Pelion  on  Ossa, 
arose  great  mountains  of  the  same  color.  And  in  the 
mirror  of  the  lake  the  mountains  also  were  painted. 
And  my  boat  floated  in  color  and  climbed  mountain 
peaks  of  scarlet  and  sank  into  the  bosom  of  flaming 
gardens.  And  the  colors  steeped  to  my  very  soul ! 


258       JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

We  do  not  talk  enough  about  this  State.  We  do 
not  tell  the  truth  about  it.  We  are  like  men  living 
among  acres  of  diamonds  and  not  knowing  that  they 
are  beautiful,  because  they  are  so  common.  We  say 
as  we  look  at  those  things  that  God  has  given  us  and  us 
alone,  'There  is  nothing  in  Europe  to  equal  that." 
Foolish  man;  there  is  nothing  anywhere  except  in 
Heaven  to  begin  to  compare  with  Maine,  in  her  autumn 
radiance.  And  I  am  not  so  all-fired  sure  about  there 
being  anything  to  equal  it  in  Heaven. 


ON  "MAKING  OUT  YOUR  INCOME  TAX" 

IGURE  it  as  you  please,  no  man  can  make  out 
an  income  tax,  the  first  time,  and  have  it 
balance.  I  have  made  out  mine,  recently, 
and  know.  And  today  I  cannot  tell  whether 
I  owe  the  government  $872.19  or  the  govern- 
ment owes  me  $94.  I  am  naturally  inclined 
to  the  latter  opinion;  but  I  can't  tell  until  I  get 
acquainted  with  the  meaning  of  fiduciary  and  amorti- 
zation and  can  tell  the  difference  between  a  tax- 
covenant  bond  and  a  non-resident  alien. 

The  point  is  right  here  in  my  income  tax :  did  I  con- 
tribute under  the  vocational  rehabilitization  act  (see 
Sect.  E)  "to  an  amount  not  in  excess  of  15  per  cent  of 
net  income  as  computed  without  the  benefit  of  this 
paragraph,  such  contributions  allowable  as  deductions 
only  if  verified  by  the  Commissioner  with  the  approval 
of  the  Secretary,"  or  did  I  in  the  case  of  buildings 
"allow  for  the  amortization  of  the  cost  of  such  part  of 
the  buildings  as  had  been  borne  by  the  tax-payer." 
It  seems  to  me  as  tho  I  did,  and  then  again  when  I  wake 
up,  it  seems  as  tho  I  did  not. 

I  amble  along  in  my  study  of  my  income  tax  and  it 
occurs  to  me  that  "in  cases  under  paragraph  four  of 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES       259 

subdivision  A  and  in  case  of  any  income  from  an  estate 
during  the  period  of  administration  or  settlement  per- 
mitted by  subdivision  (c)  to  be  deducted  from  the  net 
income  paid  by  fiduciary,  the  tax  shall  not  be  paid  by 
the  fiduciary."  If  this  be  so,  then  it  makes  some  dif- 
ference. 

I  was  working  on  my  income  tax  yesterday  all  by 
myself — with  no  expert  assistance,  because  I  desired 
to  find  out  how  the  matter  struck  a  common,  unedu- 
cated mind.  I  figured  persistently  and  by  adding  in 
the  amortizations  and  subtracting  the  fiduciaries,  I 
found  that  wader  section  (g)  Part  IV,  title  "Payment 
of  Taxes,"  I  owed  the  government  $872.19.  This  was 
more  than  I  expected,  because  I  never  had  $872.19  in 
all  my  life  at  one  time.  The  nearest  I  ever  had  was 
$400,  when  I  went  on  my  wedding  trip,  and  I  had  it  all 
in  one-dollar  bills,  so  as  to  impress  my  new  wife  with 
a  plethoric  bank-roll.  I  may  say  in  passing  that  her 
dream  has  been  shattered. 

The  perspiration  gathered  on  my  brow  as  I  looked 
at  the  $872.19  and  I  read,  "In  any  suit  or  action 
brought  to  enforce  payment  of  taxes  made  due  and 
payable  by  virtue  of  the  provisions  of  this  section,  the 
finding  of  the  commissioner,  made  as  hereinunder  pro- 
vided, shall  be  for  all  purposes  presumptive  evidence 
of  the  taxpayer's  design,  whether  made  after  notice  to 
the  taxpayer  or  not."  Of  course  if  the  "finding"  of 
the  Commissioner  included  the  finding  also  of  the 
$872.19,  it  would  be  all  right,  but  farther  on,  I  notice 
that  if  neither  of  us  can  find  it,  "all  individuals,  whether 
acting  as  lessees,  or  mortgagors  of  property,  fiduci- 
aries, employers,  with  interest,  annuities,  amortiza- 
tions, salaries,  compensations,  emoluments  or  other 
gains  (not  including  gain  in  flesh)  who  fail  to  pay, 
shall  be  sent  to  jail  for  a  year  and  punished  by  paying 
a  fine  which  floats  before  my  dazed  eyes  so  oddly  that 


260      JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

sometimes   it   looks   like   $1,000   and   sometimes   as 
$10,000. 

It  seemed  wrong  to  me  to  be  obliged  to  pay  $872.19, 
not  ever  having  had  so  much  and  not  being  able  to 
borrow  it,  so  that  for  a  time  it  looked  as  tho  I  should 
either  have  to  give  up  writing  these  "Just  Talks"  after 
March  10th,  or  else  write  them  from  jail — which  would 
be  perhaps  just  as  pleasant  as  writing  them  where  I  do 
now.  And  then  I  noticed  that  "If  a  fiscal-year  partner- 
ship  ends  during  a  calendar  year,  the  rates  for  the  pre- 
ceding calendar  year  shall  apply  to  such  part  of  the 
fiscal  year  as  the  proportion  which  such  fiscal  year 
with  the  said  calendar  year,  bears  to  the  full  fiscal  year, 
and  the  rates  for  the  said  calendar  year  during  the  said 
fiscal  year  shall  apply  to  the  remainder." 

"If  that  is  so,"  said  I  to  myself,  "it  may  perhaps 
simplify  it."  Then  I  began  over  again  and,  using  the 
same  figures  exactly,  and  adding  the  fiscal  to  the 
calendar  and  subtracting  all  the  amortizations  from 
all  the  fiduciaries;  adding  in  the  non-resident  aliens; 
taking  a  due  proportion  of  the  remaining  consolidated 
invested  capital  and  deducting  the  amount  paid  on  one 
per  centum  of  the  tax-covenant  stocks  paid  at  the 
source,  and  not  covered  by  sur-tax  as  provided  in 
Sect.  (2)  Table  III,  I  found  that  the  Government 
owes  me  over  $90.  I  am  willing  to  add  a  couple  of 
fiduciaries  and  call  it  square. 

We  have  lost  two  valuable  employees  already  from 
figuring  income  tax.  One  of  them  has  moved  to  Porto 
Rico  where,  according  to  Sec.  261,  the  Porto  Rican 
Legislature  has  the  power  to  amend,  alter  or  repeal 
income  tax  laws.  The  other  man  was  quietly  working 
when  his  head  burst,  with  a  loud  report.  He  died  from 
an  amortization,  combined  with  an  embolism  and 
untroubled  by  emoluments. 


ON  "WATCH  YOUR  STEP' 

PART  of  these  Talks  must  necessarily  be 
biographical,  because  I  know  more  about 
myself  than  I  know  about  anyone  else,  in 
spite  of  the  fact  that  an  anonymous  corres- 
pondent who  signed  herself  "One  of  the 
Brave,"  told  me  the  other  day  that  I  was  a 
nanny-goat,  or  words  to  that  effect,  and  that  I  ought 
to  go  out  and  take  a  walk  around  myself  and  look 
myself  over,  having  evidently  been  pampered  all  my 
life  and  never  knowing  what  it  was  to  work  for  a 
living.  Good  gracious! 

Well !  this  one  is  about  a  time  when  I  was  not  pam- 
pered, so  far  as  I  can  judge.  I  was  eleven  years  old 
and  went  barefoot  summers  and  sported  a  set  of 
lingerie  consisting  of  one  pair  of  linen  pants,  somewhat 
dome-shaped  in  the  rear,  and  one  cotton  shirt.  It  is  a 
story  of  what  happens  to  anyone  who  does  not  look 
where  he  is  stepping,  and  I  will  place  my  moral  right 
here.  Watch  your  step!  If  you  are  an  anonymous 
hero,  keep  out  of  mischief.  If  you  are  a  free-roamer, 
keep  out  of  trouble.  If  you  are  planning  a  serious 
step,  especially  evil,  watch  out. 

It  was  my  intention  to  go  gunning,  on  this  bright 
and  beautiful  summer  day;  but  I  was  lacking  two 
things — a  gun  and  ammunition.  My  uncle  had  both, 
but  was  not  inclined  to  be  considerate.  So  I  decided  to 
turn  burglar.  That  was  where  I  should  have  watched 
my  step.  Fathers  and  mothers,  read  this  to  your 
children  and  show  them  ME,  about  to  take  the  first 
step  in  evil.  And  be  sure  to  follow  me  to  the  finish. 

My  uncle  kept  his  ammunition  on  the  top  shelf  in 
the  woodshed.  As  I  was  hardly  tall  enough  to  put  a 
bridle  on  a  goat,  he  thought  it  was  out  of  reach.  But 
it  was  not.  Under  the  shelf  was  a  barrel.  I  secured 


262       JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

the  gun  from  my  uncle's  bedroom — false  step  No.  1. 
It  was  loaded.  Clutching  it  tightly,  as  a  boy  will,  I 
climbed  to  the  top  of  the  barrel  and  reached  up  for  the 
ammunition.  It  was  here  that  I  made  false  step  No. 
2.  The  barrel  top  was  one  of  those  old-fashioned  ones 
made  a  trifle  smaller  than  the  barrel  and  held  in  place 
on  the  top  by  a  board  nailed  across  and  resting  on  the 
chines.  It  upset ;  did  a  double  turn,  and  I  disappeared 
in  the  barrel,  gun  and  all. 

Now,  if  you  were  taking  a  first  step  in  crime,  what 
sort  of  a  material  would  you  prefer  falling  into  ?  Jam, 
maybe!  Mine  was  soft-soap;  and  I  slid  into  that 
barrel  of  soft  soap,  just  as  slick  and  just  as  far  as  any 
boy  ever  slid  into  trouble  in  all  this  wide  world.  I 
never  fitted  into  anything  else  in  all  my  life,  so  abso- 
lutely tight  and  smooth  as  I  did  into  that  soap.  It 
came  up  past — long  past,  the  dome  of  "them  pants." 
It  came  up  past  the  tail  of  that  cotton  shirt.  It  came 
up  past  my  collar  button  and,  thank  the  Lord,  or  I 
would  not  be  a  nanny-goat  today,  it  rested  just  at  my 
chin  and  I  was  not  able  to  see  over  the  top  of  the  barrel. 

And  that  was  not  all.  I  couldn't  climb  out.  Ever 
try  to  climb  out  of  the  affectionate  embrace  of  a  barrel 
of  soft-soap  ?  Ever  try  to  dig  your  toes  into  the  side 
of  a  barrel  of  soft-soap?  You  stand  more  chance  of 
being  a  member  of  the  peace  conference.  I  hollered. 
Nobody  heard  me.  My  voice  came  back,  slippery  and 
all  over  lather.  I  yelled  half  an  hour,  no  response. 

Then  I  took  step  No.  3.  I  resurrected  the  gun  from 
the  depths  of  the  soap  and  fired  it  straight  at  the 
kitchen  door.  Grandfather  and  grandmother  were 
there!  Oh  yes!  They  were  there!  And  a  yard  of 
soap  leaping  thru  the  air  and  a  fine  assortment  of  bird- 
shot  went  hurtling  into  the  peace  of  that  August  after- 
noon. I  never  knew  just  what  happened.  Grand- 
father didn't,  either.  He  says  he  saw  it  coming !  The 
shot  mercifully  spared  the  old  couple,  but  the  soap! 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES       263 

Oh  my!  It  gave  grandpa  a  shave  and  a  shampoo  and 
a  hair-cut  and  a  Saturday  night  bath  and  dyed  his 
whiskers.  It  drove  grandma  into  a  state  of  soft-soap 
never  before  seen  in  the  annals  of  that  town.  It  killed 
the  canary  bird  and  shook  the  fleas  out  of  the  dog.  It 
trimmed  the  cat's  whiskers  and  gave  her  a  facial 
massage.  It  cleaned  the  house  and  changed  all  of  the 
furniture  around.  It  almost  lifted  the  mortgage. 

But  it  saved  my  life  and  preserved  me  for  posterity 
and  made  me  so  clean  that  I  have  never  taken  a  wrong 
step  since.  So!  Watch  your  step. 


ON  "LITTLE  SHAVERS" 

S  I  WAS  going  to  work  the  other  day  I  saw  a 
"little  shaver"  standing  up  against  a  hydrant, 
waiting  for  a  car  to  take  him  to  school.  I 
can  tell  a  "little  shaver"  when  I  see  him.  He 
is  always  Somebody's  little  shaver,  bearing 
the  marks  of  somebody's  care  in  sending  him 
forth,  somebody's  kisses  on  his  cheek!  somebody's  pal- 
pitating worry  as  he  sets  forth;  somebody's  waiting 
until  he  returns. 

This  little  shaver  was  dressed  in  a  khaki  overcoat 
and  a  khaki  billy-cock  hat,  set  on  the  side  of  his  head 
with  much  art.  Around  his  neck  was  hung  a  canvas 
case,  like  those  in  which  the  doughboys  carried  their 
gas  masks  "over  there."  He  permitted  me  to  look  into 
it.  It  held  his  books,  his  luncheon,  his  paper-pad. 
This  little  shaver  was  about  five  years  old,  I  should 
reckon.  He  made  my  heart  warm  and  my  eyes  rather 
moist  at  the  thought  of  other  days  and  certain  moth- 
erly cares  of  my  own.  I  asked  him  who  "packed  his 
kit."  He  said,  "My  muvver." 

Little  shavers  are  what  induce  men  and  women  to 
struggle  on  seeking  something  that  shall  make  life 


264       JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

worth  living  for  little  shavers,  which  will  probably  be 
more  "little  shavers"  for  sacrificial  tears  and  troubles, 
and  GO  on  and  on ;  for  the  world  is  not  coming  to  an  end, 
and  men  and  women  are  to  be  happier  as  the  ages  come 
and  as  Pentecost  draws  nigh.  Women  carry  little 
shavers  under  their  hearts.  Men  carry  them  in  their 
joy  and  pride.  And  they  send  them  out  as  the 
"muwer"  had  sent  this  one  out,  to  take  their  chances, 
just  as  clean  and  well  equipped  as  possible,  and  with 
their  sack  and  scrip  all  prepared. 

The  world  also  ought  to  be  a  sort  of  mother  and 
father  to  little  shavers.  They  should  not  be  trampled 
on  or  hurt.  The  strong  who  have  authority  would  do 
well  to  take  a  look  at  little  boys  and  little  girls  going 
to  and  fro,  some  to  school,  some  carrying  dad's  dinner- 
pail,  some  playing  about  the  street,  and  remember  that 
they  are  wards  of  society,  of  laws,  of  public  service,  of 
equities  in  public  domain,  of  human  right,  of  educa- 
tional advantages,  of  protection  from  public  evil.  In 
every  legislative-hall  should  be  a  picture  of  childhood 
in  some  form.  Every  year  there  should  be  a  general 
accounting  by  State  and  Nation  as  to  what  is  being 
done  for  childhood.  Trite  enough  is  the  saying :  "They 
are  the  men  and  women  of  tomorrow;"  but  truth  is 
often  trite  and  the  "ten  commandments  do  not  budge" 
no  matter  how  often  assailed,  nor  do  they  become  stale, 
how  often  repeated. 

We  would  all  like  to  be  "little  shavers"  all  over 
again,  would  we  not,  just  to  tell  other  little  shavers, 
out  of  our  now  broadened  experience  with  life,  what 
love  their  parents  truly  bear  them;  what  toil  they 
necessitate;  what  sacrifices  they  imply;  what  anguish 
they  occasion ;  what  worry  they  bring.  We  would  like 
to  tell  all  boys  and  girls  the  duty  they  owe  to  mothers ; 
how  careful  they  should  be  of  them,  how  tenderly  they 
should  regard  them. 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES       265 

Little  shavers !  How  stolidly  they  go  about,  taking 
all  as  a  matter  of  course !  Giving  little  save  now  and 
then,  when  by  climbing  sleepily  into  mother's  or 
father's  arms  they  pillow  weary  heads  on  happy  hearts. 

The  infinitude  of  parental  love !  What  means  it,  if 
it  does  not  signify  the  infinitude  of  the  Greater  Love 
that  a  Universal  Father  bears  toward  all  us  "little 
shavers"  here  below,  careless,  indifferent,  thoughtless, 
but  destined  to  come  home  some  night  from  the  long, 
long  school,  find  the  light  streaming  from  the  doorway 
of  the  House  and  content  to  pillow  a  weary  head  on  a 
bosom  of  infinite  love !  If  not  this,  then  what  does  it 
all  mean?  What  availeth  it  if  love  here  passes  with 
little  shavers ! 


ON  "KILLING  THE  PIG" 

FTER  a  period  of  more  or  less  familiar 
acquaintance  with  a  family  pig,  the  boys  in 
our  neighborhood  came  to  feel  affectionately 
disposed  toward  him.  We  used  to  wander 
instinctively  toward  the  pig-pen  in  moments 
of  abstraction,  to  nurse  griefs  and  wait  for 
the  tingle  of  the  hickory  in  dad's  hands  to  evaporate. 
There  was  fitness  in  weeping  into  a  pig-pen.  There 
was  sociability  in  the  pig's  sympathetic  grunts  of  wel- 
come. When  all  else  was  against  us,  it  did  seem  as 
though  the  pig  loved  us.  At  least  he  never  found  any 
fault  with  us — which  was  more  than  we  could  say  of 
anyone  else  about  the  premises. 

:  So,  when  it  came  pig-killing  season,  every  boy  had 
a  duty  to  attend  the  obsequies  far  and  near.  At  school 
the  commonest  question  was,  "When's  your  pig  goin' 
to  be  killed  ?"  We  kept  a  list  of  pig-killings  and  waited 
them  as  a  mournful,  yet  eager,  festival.  Many  a  tedious 
mile  have  I  walked  over  roads  in  the  country  with 


266       JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

other  boys,  on  the  way  to  pig-killings.  Yet  I  recall 
having  seen  the  overt  act  but  once,  and  then  the  bloody 
jowls  and  the  piercing  screams  of  the  dying  porker 
convinced  me  that  once  was  enough.  It  must  have 
been  the  ceremonial,  rather  than  the  ceremony,  that 
attracted  us.  I  have  had  the  same  impressions  later 
in  certain  performances  of  Oliver  Twist,  where  Bill 
Sykes  massacres  Nancy.  One  look  satisfied  me. 
After  that,  I  preferred  to  close  my  eyes  and  consider 
the  thing  done,  in  spite  of  me. 

Of  course,  every  boy  whose  own  pig  was  being 
killed,  held  for  the  time  being  autocratic  relations  to 
the  rest  of  the  community  of  boys.  He  was  host 
ex  pigofficio.  He  was  President  of  the  Boy-Snouts. 
He  took  us  around  previous  to  the  obsequies,  provided 
we  arrived  in  season.  He  introduced  us  to  the  soon-to- 
be-lamented.  He  called  the  pig  by  name  and  we  all 
looked  in  silence  into  the  unsuspecting,  if  somewhat 
narrow  and  contracted,  eyes  of  the  pig.  We  had 
thoughts — at  any  rate  I  know  I  had  'em — on  the  pass- 
ing of  the  finite  into  pork.  We  gave  him  a  last  fare- 
well scratching  with  the  handy  hoe.  Then  the  host 
took  us  around  and  showed  us  the  shears  on  which  the 
dead  was  to  be  elevated ;  the  boiling  vat  into  which  he 
was  to  be  plunged  for  purposes  of  tonsorialism.  He 
promised  certain  recondite  portions  of  the  pig's 
anatomy  to  different  boys — all  except  the  bladder. 

The  arrival  of  the  butcher ;  the  bustling  about  many 
things;  the  goings  and  comings  of  men  and  women; 
the  steaming  of  the  great  kettles ;  the  final  approach  of 
the  butcher  to  the  pen;  the  invariable  sudden  fear  of 
the  animal ;  the  occasional  chase  around  the  yard  with 
a  fat  butcher  hanging  to  a  pig's  tail — all  these  are 
firmly  fixed  in  memory.  Enough!  The  squeals  still 
ring  in  memory.  Alas  for  the  order  of  the  universe 
that  says  that  beasts  shall  die  for  the  food  of  a  folk! 
We  gathered  about  the  reeking  carcass  where  it  lay  and 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES       267 

often  wept  a  tear.  "Poor  old  Buster,"  said  the  boy,  "I 
won't  ever  bring  you  any  more  dinner." 

But  tears  pass.  The  proper  manicuring  of  a  pig  is 
something  that  had  a  peculiar  fascination  for  the  old- 
fashioned  boy.  I  suppose  that  the  modern  boy  would 
find  nothing  interesting  in  it.  He  cares  for  nothing 
that  he  can  get  for  nothing.  His  ideas  are  fixed  on  a 
chummy-roadster  and  the  moving-picture.  The  simple 
bucolic  divertisements  of  lang  syne  are  old  stuff.  He 
wouldn't  even  be  interested  in  an  old-fashioned  soap- 
making  or  a  corn-husking.  He  would  not  swap  his 
jack-knife  for  a  pig's  bladder.  But  with  most  old- 
fashioned  boys  a  dried  and  properly  cured  pig's  bladder 
was  something  for  which  a  boy  would  barter  his  hope 
of  immortality,  and  not  to  blame — the  hope  of  immor- 
tality being  a  matter  of  future  consideration.  Most 
old-fashioned  boys  have  blown  themselves  red  in  the 
face  over  the  pipe-stem  of  a  pig's  bladder,  and  when 
the  job  was  done  have  enjoyed  nothing  else  so  much  as 
the  chance  to  step  up  behind  another  boy  and  give  him 
a  resounding  welt  with  it  behind  the  ear. 

These  are  things  that  it  is  well  to  recur  to  now  and 
then,  as  indicative  of  the  simpler  joys  of  boyhood,  in 
the  days  of  simpler  life.  We  are  all  boys  to  more  and 
more  extent.  Life  in  general  has  become  equally 
complex.  Men  and  women  are  no  longer  satisfied  with 
neighborhood  matters.  But  the  question  intrudes,  are 
they  any  happier  now  than  then  ?  Is  life  sweeter  and 
better,  with  all  of  the  luxury  of  the  present,  than  in  the 
simple  day  when  it  was  no  trouble  "to  keep  up  with 
Lizzie,"  and  when,  if  you  had  a  pig  to  kill  and  a  Holy 
Bible  on  the  center  table  and  a  barrel  of  soft-soap,  you 
were  the  people?" 


ON  "THE  PUSSY-WILLOW" 

AYBE  you  have  already  seen  children  coming 
along  the  streets  that  lead  homeward  from 
the  outlying  brooks  and  ponds  these  March 
days,  with  arms  full  of  pussy-willows,  and 
you  have  felt  suddenly  tender  again  toward 
life  and  considerate  of  how  steadily  the  calm 
world  of  Nature  pursues  her  way,  unvexed  by  all 
of  the  ant-like  skurrying  to  and  fro,  of  man  and 
nations  of  men.  Out  of  the  past  rise  memories  of 
yourself  as  a  child  searching  for  the  first  signs  of 
the  little  furry  catkins  and  eagerly  bringing  them 
home,  to  tempt  again  the  old-time  miracle  of  faith; 
that  if  put  where  it  was  exactly  warm  enough — in 
the  cuddly  toe  of  a  little  shoe  by  the  warm  fireside — 
out  of  the  night  and  all  its  wonders,  might  emerge, 
by  way  of  the  immaculate  conception  of  the  pussy- 
willow, a  dear  little  roly-poly  kitten,  with  very  bright 
eyes  and  a  spiky  little  tail  firmly  standing  erect, 
waiting  there  or  else  rolling  over  (kitten,  tail,  and  all) 
before  the  fire  when  you  arose  in  the  morning.  Disap- 
pointment never  raised  a  doubt.  There  was  ever  a 
reason  and  ever  a  failure. 

So  we  see,  each  recurring  spring,  the  coming  of 
the  children,  bearing  the  pussy-willow  as  a  rite  and 
religion  of  childhood,  of  the  spirit  of  resurrection,  in 
the  very  heart  of  the  world.  And  the  pussy-willow 
has  a  perfect  right,  of  its  own  dear  little  self,  to  have 
a  place  of  distinction  in  the  episode.  For  it  is  first 
on  the  spot;  first  of  all  vegetation  to  feel  the  kiss  of 
the  lovely  Sprite  that  tiptoes  first  to  the  brookside  and 
along  the  oozy  borders  of  the  ponds.  Here,  screened 
from  March  gales  and  winter  snows,  in  response  to  the 
touch  of  spring,  the  pussy-willow  puts  off  her  brown 
winter  coat  and  begins  to  glisten  in  the  furry  little 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES       269 

dress  that  is  so  soft,  warm  and  beautiful.  And  it  is 
odd  that  where  Spring  first  finds  her  way  out,  there 
she  also  departs,  for,  along  the  borders  of  the  pond, 
the  last  glimpse  of  vegetation  endures,  in  autumn,  as 
it  shows  first  in  the  spring. 

Another  thing  that  may  interest  us  all  about  our 
little  friend  the  pussy-willow,  is  that  childhood,  every- 
where the  world-over,  has  the  same  love  for  it.  There 
is  not  a  place  in  the  world  where  the  willow  does  not 
grow  in  some  form.  It  is  along  the  equator,  in  the 
far-off  polar  regions  as  far  as  any  vegetation  what- 
ever endures  of  the  tree-type,  and  with  many  uses, 
from  material  weaving  baskets  and  reeds,  to  making 
charcoal  and  bringing  great  returns  to  some  people 
who  have  raised  the  willow  commercially.  In  olden 
days,  it  was  used  instead  of  the  palm  in  the  church 
festivals  and  appropriately  as  a  symbol  of  the  resur- 
rection, for  it  has  strange  powers  latent  within  it. 
You  can  hardly  kill  a  willow  twig.  Put  it  away  and 
allow  it  nearly  to  dry  and  desiccate  and  yet  put  it  into 
the  earth  and  give  it  moisture,  and  from  the  bare 
twig  will  set  out  roots  and  buds  and  it  will  struggle 
into  fresh  green  again  in  the  bravest  and  most  reso- 
lute way.  It  has  a  singular  reserve  in  leaf-buds.  It 
keeps  many  of  them  against  day  of  need.  If  fire 
sweeps  in  willow,  or  it  becomes  parched  by  drought 
and  seemingly  dies,  the  first  touch  of  moisture  will 
start  out  the  reserve  buds  and  again  it  is  on  its  way 
as  tho  nothing  had  happened.  You  have  seen  the 
willow-tree  cut  off  at  its  base  and  left  in  a  condition 
that  would  discourage  the  ordinary  tree;  and  yet, 
in  a  year  or  two,  there  it  is  again,  all  foliage,  spring- 
ing from  the  slender  withes  about  the  trunk. 

After  the  children  have  brought  in  the  pussy- 
willow and  the  miracle  of  spring  is  on  its  way,  the 
catkins  become  either  silver  or  yellow.  You  find  them 
swollen  and  fat.  The  golden  ones  are  loaded  with  the 


270       JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

stamens;  the  silver  with  the  pistils.  And  soon  the 
bees  are  busy;  flying  from  the  silver  to  the  gold,  fer- 
tilizing them  with  the  pollen  on  their  feet,  while  they 
get  the  first  honey  of  the  new  year.  And  then,  by 
and  by,  much  later  in  the  year,  the  willows  are  again 
shining  in  the  golden  light  with  long,  waving  burdens 
of  the  seeds  that  float  away  on  land  rivers  and  are 
so  prolific  that  by  nature's  scheme  if  one  in  a  bil- 
lion lodges  happily  and  grows,  the  balance  of  nature 
is  preserved,  so  far  as  the  pussy-willow  tree  is 
concerned. 

So — here  it  is  again,  the  new  March-time  in  the 
arms  of  childhood,  coming  down  the  street,  the  pussy- 
willow !  Wonder  what  is  within  the  furry  coat !  What 
mystery  of  life;  what  casket  of  the  Lord  God's  own 
placing!  "Who  knoweth  the  balancings  of  the  clouds 
and  how  thy  garments  are  warm  when  He  quieteth 
the  earth  by  the  south  wind?  Hath  the  rain  a  father 
and  who  hath  begotten  the  drops  of  dew?"  How  little 
we  know — less  even  than  Job!  Little  children  know 
more  than  we — for  they  at  least  see  miracles  in  the 
pussy-willow — while  we  often  pass  even  the  little  chil- 
dren by  and  see  no  miracles,  only  Things. 


ON  "THE  TITLE  AND  THE  FAMILY" 

OMEHOW,  I  always  supposed  that  if  I  had 
been  born  a  prince  I  would  wear  a  feather  in 
my  cap  and  go  around  on  a  pony  and  never 
be  called  by  any  other  name  than  my  title. 
It  never  occurred  to  me  that  I  should 
be  concerned  with  having  a  father  or  a 
mother — mere  appendages  of  childhood,  useful  chiefly 
at  bed-time  and  in  the  dark  watches  of  the  night 
when  dream-horrors  come  and  we  cry  out  far 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES       271 

help,  feeling  sure  of  the  tender  watchfulness  of 
motherhood. 

I  used  to  read  Fairy  stories  a  good  deal  and  my 
notion  of  a  palace  was  perhaps  distorted.  There  was 
little  else  for  a  prince  to  do  than  be  waited  upon.  He 
clapped  his  hands  and  servants  appeared.  Of  course 
a  Prince  never  had  to  go  to  school.  There  were  no 
permutations  or  combinations  and  the  doctrine  of 
chances  never  was  to  enter  the  case  at  all.  Algebra 
was  for  studious  boys,  not  for  princes,  and  as  for 
finding  the  perimeter  of  a  duodecagon — the  idea!  I 
would  not  bother  even  to  learn  to  spell — and  as  a  mat- 
ter of  fact,  the  old-fashioned  princes  and  princesses 
did  not  bother  to  spell ;  not  even  to  read  printing. 

The  foregoing  idea  of  royal  households  is  possibly 
not  unique  with  me.  I  find  some  of  my  neighbors 
have  a  rather  hazy  notion  of  a  royal  menage.  Some 
of  them  seem  to  feel  that  a  prince  approaches  his 
father,  the  King,  on  bended  knee;  salutes  him  lowly 
and  says  "Your  Majesty,"  and  never  "dad."  I  have 
often  wondered  myself,  and  perhaps  you  have  won- 
dered, if  queens  ever  kiss  their  children;  ever  wipe 
their  noses ;  ever  take  off  their  bibs ;  ever  spank  them ; 
ever  call  them  by  baby-names.  Is  love  left  out  of 
royalty?  Are  domesticity  and  diet  unknown  in  the 
palaces?  Do  princes  call  each  other  "Bill"  or  "Ed," 
or  "Harry"  or  "Jim?"  Do  little  princes  have  old 
Grannies,  tender  and  dear  old  Grannies,  to  whom  they 
can  go  in  grief  and  who  will  give  them  two  lumps 
of  sugar  in  their  tea  (as  Harry  Lauder  says  his  old 
Grannie  did,  when  he  went  to  visit  her  as  a  boy  and 
for  which  he  loves  all  old  Grannies  the  world  over, 
today)  and  do  they  have  Grandpops  also? 

I  want  you  to  know  that  I  am  not  writing  this  as 
an  advocate  of  royalty.  None  of  the  crowned  heads 
are  paying  me  any  money  for  doing  this  piece  of 
writing.  I  am  just  maundering  along  wondering 


272       JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

about  things  in  my  own  way.  I  am  rather  inclined 
to  say  that  royalty  does  not  interest  me  at  all ;  human- 
ity is  what  interests  me — the  simple  fact  that  all 
human  beings,  rich  and  poor,  plutocrat,  king,  bourgeois, 
commoner,  aristocrat,  proletariat,  are  on  the  dead 
level  when  it  comes  to  love  of  the  helpless  little  mite 
that  lies  blue-veined  within  its  mother's  arms.  We 
are  all  fathers,  mothers,  children,  uncles,  aunts, 
daddies,  grand-daddies  and  grannies. 

The  other  day  Congressman  White  of  Lewiston, 
who  says  he  reads  this  column  religiously,  for  purpose 
of  the  humanities  herein  said  to  be  contained,  sent 
me  a  copy  of  the  London  Times  that  had  escaped  my 
notice — for  I  do  read  the  Times.  It  contained  an 
account  of  the  death  of  Prince  John,  youngest  son  of 
George  and  Victoria  Mary.  He  had  been  a  poor  little 
invalid  all  of  his  life  and  human  love  plainly  was 
showered  upon  him  by  all  around  him.  He  never 
was  seen  in  public ;  for  he  had  a  disease  which  is  called 
epilepsy  and  he  might  be  seized  anywhere.  He  was 
about  fourteen  years  old  when  he  died  in  his  sleep. 
He  was  buried  in  a  coffin  made  from  an  oak-tree  grown 
at  Sandringham,  where  he  died  Jan.  24, 1919. 

At  the  funeral,  which  was  private,  there  were 
flowers  from  the  family  only  and  from  the  people  of 
the  household.  The  flowers  from  the  parents  bore  a 
card  which  read,  "For  our  darling  Johnnie,  from  his 
sorrowing  parents."  The  child's  grandmother,  who  is 
Queen  Alexandra,  wife  of  the  late  King  Edward  VII., 
placed  upon  the  simple  little  coffin  a  cross  of  lilies 
and  orchids  with  this  inscription:  "In  remembrance 
of  my  darling  little  Johnnie,  Grannie's  precious  grand- 
son, whose  memory  will  never  fade.  May  he  rest  in 
peace  forever  with  the  Lord,  tho  we  miss  him 
sorely  here,  on  earth.  From  his  poor  old  Grannie, 
Alexandra."  The  little  lad's  sister  and  brother  sent 
a  wreath  with  this  inscription  on  the  card:  "For 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES       273 

darling  Johnnie,  from  his  sister  and  brothers,  David, 
Bertie,  Harry,  George  and  Mary." 

There  you  are — not  a  prince  in  it!  Not  a  King 
or  a  Queen!  Nothing  but  that  older  title,  dear  thru 
all  time,  born  "at  life's  drifted  font,"  sacred  in  all  of 
the  estimates  of  life,  death,  and  resurrection;  secure 
in  eternal  edict  of  Love  and  its  Laws — "Father"; 
"Mother";  "Sister";  "Brother";  "Grannie."  By  com- 
parison, how  small  all  others  seem!  By  comparison, 
how  mighty  is  Love! 


ON  "CONFESSIONS  OF  A  SMOKER" 

FIRMLY  believe  that  the  man  who  smokes 
deserves  to  be  punished  for  it.  Many  of 
them  agree  with  me  and  are  willing  to  abide 
by  the  issue.  Most  of  them  have  been  pun- 
ished some.  The  very  learning  to  smoke 
carries  its  qualms.  I  remember  that  when 
I  set  out  to  accomplish  the  education  in  tobacco,  I  was 
out  in  a  sail-boat  on  a  glassy,  long-rolling  sea,  con- 
nected to  the  business  end  of  a  black  manila  cheroot. 
Roll  on,  thou  dark  blue  ocean,  roll — with  accent  on  the 
"dark  blue."  And  yet,  dear  reader,  may  I  confess, 
I  still  have  the  awful  habit  of  smoking,  which  I  con- 
sider the  most  pernicious  and  which  I  advise  all  others 
to  avoid.  Why  I  did  not  lose  the  habit  at  that  time 
and  place,  I  never  could  understand — I  lost  so  much. 

A  correspondent  writes  me  this  week  that  the  man 
who  smokes  should  by  all  of  the  biblical  interpretations 
of  punishment  be  landed  in  hell.  I  agree  with  him.  I 
cannot  fancy  people  smoking — or  wanting  to  smoke — 
in  heaven.  But  that  is  not  so  much  a  question  with 
me  (for  if  a  man  had  the  desire  to  smoke  in  heaven, 
and  as  he  has  won  the  right  to  happiness,  there  would 
be  smoking-rooms  somewhere),  as  is  the  belief  that 


274      JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

a  person  here  should  try  to  please  others  and  if  those 
who  do  not  smoke,  feel  about  it  as  they  say,  why!  we 
should  try  to  oblige  them,  same  as  we  do  people 
playing  golf.  It  makes  me  mad  to  see  people  wearing 
out  their  lives  and  strength,  playing  golf  when  they 
might  be  sawing  wood.  I  don't  do  it — why  should 
others?  It  annoys  me.  They  put  their  clubs  on  my 
toes  in  the  trolley  cars.  They  go  about  with  a  superior 
look  on  their  faces.  Must  I  submit  tamely?  Never! 
I  want  golf  playing  abolished  by  law ! 

It  has  been  decided  also  that  the  lowest  sin  of  all 
smoking  is  the  cigarette.  I  smoke  cigarettes!  I  quit 
smoking  cigars,  for  my  health.  It  was  being  under- 
mined by  cigars.  The  pipe  is  also  a  rudimentary  sin. 
I  selected  the  cigarette  as  the  least  harmful — the 
tapering  off  to  the  final  release  from  the  dread  bond- 
age. I  am  still  convinced  that  it  is  all  that  I  hoped  it 
to  be;  and  yet  I  find  that  I  am  in  bad  company.  I 
am  gradually  conquering  it  by  getting  onto  simpler 
brands.  I  began  with  the  twenty  cent  kind  and  am 
now  down  to  the  eight  cent  brand  and  hope  by  degrees 
to  get  down  to  the  five  cent;  the  three  cent;  the  two 
cent,  and  thus  taper  off  to  nothing.  I  hope  that  a  law 
may  intervene  to  make  cigarettes  either  cheaper  or 
dearer — it  does  not  matter  much  which. 

I  am  warning  boys  against  the  first  cigarette.  It 
is  sure  to  make  you  trouble.  There  is  something  so 
seductive  and  seditious  about  it  that  it  cannot  be 
expressed  in  words.  One  cigarette  will  lead  to  another 
and  then  to  another,  and  by  and  by,  some  night  you 
will  grow  up  (unless  you  die)  and  will  go  staggering 
home  to  your  wife,  mother  and  children,  full  of  Camels, 
Meccas,  Fatimas  and  Pall  Malls,  blear-eyed,  incoherent, 
the  mere  semblance  of  a  human  being,  a  shame  to  your 
household  and  especially  to  your  little  children. 

This  is  no  fancy  picture.  There  is  no  more  horrible 
fate  than  the  man  so  lowly  inclined.  And  it  may  all 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES       275 

be  stopped  by  omitting  the  first  cigarette — all  so  easy. 
Think  of  the  time  and  money  you  will  save  by  going 
without.  Think  of  the  bondage  of  the  smoker!  He 
is  tied  for  life  to  a  box  of  matches  and  a  cigarette,  a 
pipe  or  a  cigar.  Men  have  wasted  more  time  scratch- 
ing matches  this  very  day,  than  would  build  a  mer- 
chant vessel.  Every  day,  men  and  women — for  women 
also  are  smoking — put  more  time  into  smoking  than 
would  raise  a  million  bushels  of  wheat.  The  figures 
are  not  mine ! 

Charles  Lamb  wrote  the  most  pathetic  tale  of  his 
bondage  to  the  pipe.  He  was  a  melancholy  man, 
who  smoked  incessantly.  I  do  not.  I  smoke  only  now 
and  then — mostly  now.  Lamb  had  the  good  habit  of 
feeling  his  sin.  He  was  a  philosopher  on  the  subject. 
I  am  only  a  warrior.  I  am  "agin"  it  in  theory  and  for 
it  in  personal  practice.  I  do  not  like  to  have  others 
smoke  and  not  myself  smoke.  And  yet  I  would  like  to 
see  the  day  come  when  nobody  smoked,  for  then  I  am 
sure  I  would  not  care  to  do  it  alone. 

You  may  say  that  this  is  a  lamentable  confession. 
I  admit  it.  All  writers  come  to  the  confessional 
now  and  then.  I  assume  that  you,  dear  reader,  will  be 
willing  to  come  across  with  confessions  equally  per- 
sonal as  to  your  pet  sins.  I  am  willing,  nay  eager,  to 
be  punished !  Are  you  ?  I  ask  no  leniency.  I  confess 
and  abjure  and  yet  smoke  on.  I  am  punished  daily.  I 
am  punished  nightly.  I  am  punished  in  futurity.  I 
am  of  the  vast  army — going  to  quit.  I  am  waiting, 
waiting  for  sentence,  of  the  high  Court!  And  yet  I 
do  feel  that  when  the  Law  of  the  Statutes  or  the  Law 
of  Habit  or  the  Law  of  Righteousness  does  intervene 
between  the  smoker  and  his  sins,  between  the  pensive 
smoke  wreath  that  makes  his  dreams  all  come  true  and 
the  cold  realization  of  a  smokeless  after-supper  time 
with  no  book  and  pipe,  no  cigarette  and  typewriter 
between  him  and  the  cold  outer  world,  some  compensa- 


276       JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

tion  ought  to  be  made  him.  He  should  have  an  extra 
halo  on  his  brow;  or  a  purple  stripe  on  his  harp,  or  a 
victory-badge  on  his  little  cloud-aeroplane  to  show 
"over  there"  that  he  was  a  hero  over  here. 


ON  "DOWN  AND  NOT  OUT" 

VER  lie  flat  on  your  back  and  think  it  over! 

It  is  good  for  you,  whether  you  lie  under 

your  automobile  or  out  on  a  grassy  hill-top 

under  the  skies. 
It  gets  the  blood  out  of  your  head;  it 

distributes  the  lymph  more  evenly;  it  gives 
you  enlarged  vision;  it  takes  the  conceit  out  of  you, 
especially  if  it  be  under  the  automobile,  referred  to. 
And  if  something  or  someone  happens  to  put  you  flat 
on  your  back — oh!  the  good  it  does  you!  It  teaches 
you  what  your  weaknesses  are;  develops  just  where 
the  crick  in  your  anatomy  is  located;  teaches  you  to 
be  humble.  And  you  jump  up  ready  to  make  a  new 
start  and  a  better  one  than  ever  before. 

Down!  But  not  out!  That's  the  position  I  am 
talking  about.  You  have  been  going  along  pretty  well 
upright  on  your  feet.  Something  floors  you.  Pride 
goeth  down  with  you,  as  saith  the  Scripture.  You 
are  flat  on  your  back  and  taking  the  count.  In  that 
brief  time  you  have  leisure,  untold,  for  thinking  over 
when,  how  and  where  you  received  the  punch  that  put 
you  to  the  mat.  You  can,  recumbently,  size  up  the 
individual  whose  feet  you  perceive  to  be  finally  on 
a  level  with  his  head.  What  a  chance  to  look  the  thing 
that  floored  you  fair  in  the  face.  If  it  be  extravagance, 
you  see  its  foolish  features.  If  it  be  dissipation,  you 
feel  its  hot  breath,  disgustingly.  If  it  be  lust,  you 
hear  its  ribald  laughter.  If  it  be  negligence,  you  see 
its  slothful  habit.  If  it  be  sin,  you  turn  away  from 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES       277 

its  loathsome  face.  Never  before  did  you  see  just 
what  you  were  fighting.  Now,  at  last,  you  see  it  as 
it  really  is.  Help  me  up!  Give  me  a  hand.  I  know 
the  chap  that  gave  me  the  punch.  He  is  weaker  than 
I  am.  I  know,  now,  where  to  strike  him  and  strike 
to  win.  I'm  none  the  worse  for  having  been  flat  on 
my  back,  but  rather,  am  I  better — having  been  far 
from  perfect,  hitherto. 

And  another  thing  as  you  lie  flat  on  your  back, 
looking  up,  you  may  see  thru  the  azure  into  skies  be- 
yond the  blue.  Doubtful  if  you  ever  looked  at  the 
sky  much,  anyway,  when  you  were  pursuing  the  pleas- 
ures of  the  cabaret — and  elsewhere.  Did  you  know 
the  sky  is  very  peaceful  and  very  large  and  very  old 
and  very  likely  to  outlast  you  and  your  fancies?  Did 
you  know  that  it  hath  many  stars  at  night  that  seem 
to  indicate  that  there  are  infinite  fires  beyond  the 
Pleiades  and  infinite  heavens  in  the  space  of  worlds? 
Did  you  know  that  God  gave  it  the  color  of  the  eyes 
of  an  innocent  baby — blue,  yea,  very  blue,  as  tho  filled 
with  celestial  light.  And  by  day  what  beats  upon  your 
face?  What  but  sunshine,  and  what  is  better  than 
that?  Perhaps  you  may  see  far  enough  into  the  sky 
to  catch  some  glimpse  of  a  certain  power  in  the 
heavens,  not  made  of  man  but  eternal — up  there. 
Perhaps  it  will  give  you  a  lift. 

So!  Get  up!  Go  to  it.  You  are  not  licked.  Fact 
is  you  are  a  lot  stronger  than  before  you  went  to 
earth.  Nobody  can  whip  you,  except  yourself.  The 
world  is  full  of  folks  who  would  help  you,  if  you 
needed  it,  but  you  don't.  If  you  were  any  man  before 
you  went  down,  you  are  a  better  man  now.  Here  is 
your  motto:  "Look  up,  not  down;  look  forward,  not 
back;  lend  a  hand."  When  you  are  standing  up  again 
with  the  dawn  of  the  new  day  in  your  face,  pass 
on  the  word. 


278       JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

And  perhaps,  in  the  newer  life  you  will  like  to  go 
out  on  the  hills  and  lie  flat  on  your  back  just  for  fun, 
and  for  the  sake  of  the  analogies.  You  will  see  a  lot — 
birds  in  the  tree,  clouds  in  the  skies,  sun  in  the 
heavens,  hope  in  the  future.  And  all  you  will  ask  for 
is  someone  to  brush  off  your  back  with  the  promise  to 
your  soul  that  henceforth  it  shall  ever  be  kept  clean. 


ON  "THE  ETERNAL  SEARCH" 

AFCADIO  HEARN  tells  us  that  in  the  house  of 
any  old  Japanese  family,  the  guest  is  likely 
to  be  shown  some  of  the  heirlooms.  "A 
pretty  little  box,  perhaps,  will  be  set  before 
you.  Opening  it,  you  will  see  only  a  beau- 
tiful silk  bag,  closed  with  a  silk  running-cord 
decked  with  tiny  tassels.  You  open  the  bag  and  see 
within  it  another  bag  of  a  different  quality  of  silk, 
but  very  fine.  Open  that,  and  lo!  a  third,  which  con- 
tains a  fourth,  which  contains  a  fifth,  which  contains 
a  sixth,  which  contains  a  seventh,  which  contains  the 
strongest,  hardest  vessel  of  Chinese  clay  that  you  ever 
beheld.  Yet  it  is  not  only  curious  but  also  precious ; 
it  may  be  more  than  a  thousand  years  old." 

Historical,  natural  science  and  the  study  of  life  in  its 
ultimate  forces  have  to  do  with  similar  unwrapping. 
One  removes  one  wrapper  and  then  another.  We  try  to 
count  the  threads,  we  try  to  analyze  the  envelopes; 
we  try  to  find  the  secret  that  they  contain.  And  when 
we  do  find  it,  we  ask  science  what  it  is.  She  can  only 
say,  "I  do  not  know."  It  is  so  old,  so  wonderful,  that 
science  can  give  no  name  to  it. 

This  is  a  very  good  illustration  of  the  hopelessness 
of  human  effort  to  understand  God.  The  most  learned 
theses  end  at  something  which  man  cannot  name.  He 
makes  a  big  show  of  removing  the  envelopes;  he 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES       279 

displays  his  treasure.  He  cannot  give  you  any 
further  light. 

So,  one  may  be  pardoned  for  getting  weary  of 
human  effort  to  solve  life  all  at  once,  by  writing  a 
book  about  it.  There  is  a  story  of  a  man  who  died 
and  came  back  to  earth.  He  had  spent  his  life  on  a 
monumental  work,  intended  to  explain  the  mystery 
of  this  world  and  the  next.  He  was  permitted  to 
wander  thru  all  of  the  libraries  where  he  expected  to 
find  his  book.  The  only  work  of  his  that  he  found 
in  any  library  was  a  little,  thin  volume  of  casual 
essays  on  his  own  personal  experience.  His  solution 
had  passed  into  oblivion ;  his  experience  still  lived. 

Perhaps  the  solution  of  life  and  its  problems,  its 
source  and  its  destiny,  may  lie  in  the  collection  of  scat- 
tered experiences,  as  the  final  pattern  of  the  rug  is 
in  the  collected  threads.  Science  cannot  answer  a 
single  question  of  elemental  sort.  It  deals  in  processes 
but  not  in  the  "why"  of  one  of  them.  It  unfolds  the 
element  but  cannot  name  it.  It  is  lost  in  wonder  in 
two  worlds — the  great  spaces  and  the  small.  It  makes 
a  great  parade  of  knowledge,  but  while  it  knows  that 
the  compass  points  north  and  that  the  seed  germinates 
in  ground — it  has  no  name  for  the  force  that  thus 
compels  them. 

Everything  that  you  study,  therefore,  tends  to 
make  you  more  firmly  a  believer  in  something  you 
cannot  name.  "There  are  two  books  whence  I  collect 
my  divinity,"  wrote  Sir  Thomas  Browne,  hundreds  and 
hundreds  of  years  ago,  in  that  most  wonderful  of 
books  "Religio  Medici."  "Besides  that  one  written 
of  God,  there  is  another  of  his  servant  Nature,  that 
universal  and  public  manuscript  that  lies  expanded 
before  the  eyes  of  all.  Those  who  never  saw  Him  in 
the  one  have  discovered  Him  in  the  other."  And 
Bacon  said :  "This  I  dare  affirm  in  knowledge  of  Nature, 
that  a  little  natural  philosophy  and  the  first  entrance 


280       JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

into  it  doth  dispose  a  man  to  atheism,  but,  on  the 
oJier  side,  much  natural  philosophy  and  wading  deep 
into  it,  will  bring  about  men's  minds  to  religion." 

Thus,  will  you  please  bear  with  me  for  sermonizing 
in  this  day  when  religion  of  some  kind  is  so  sorely 
needed.  Will  you  bear  in  mind  that  you  may 
go  as  far  as  you  like  and,  ever  and  ever  farther  on  in 
the  little  box  of  your  life,  are  things  that  contain 
things.  And  that  when  you  go  as  far  as  you  can — 
there  is  at  last  something  you  cannot  name.  Is  it  the 
eternal?  Is  it  the  everlasting,  Almighty  God?  Men 
of  science,  thru  all  ages,  have  sought  to  discover  him. 
It  is  the  quest  of  all  study.  And  is  it  not  true,  after 
all,  that  the  Kingdom  of  God  cometh  not  by  observa- 
tion— but  rather  by  faith  and  at  the  mother's  knee? 


ON  "GENTLENESS  AS  A  PRACTICE" 

UR  OLD  friend,  Marcus  Aurelius,  says:  Con- 
sider that  gentleness  is  invincible,  provided 
it  is  of  the  right  stamp,  without  anything  of 
hypocrisy  or  malice.  This  is  the  way  to  dis- 
arm the  most  insolent,  if  you  continue  kind 
and  unmoved  under  ill-usage;  if  you  strike 
in  with  the  right  opportunity  for  advice ;  if,  when  he 
is  trying  to  do  you  an  ill  turn,  you  endeavor  to  recover 
his  understanding  and  retrieve  his  temper  by  such 
language  as  this,  'I  shall  not  be  injured,  you  are  only 
injuring  yourself.'  Show  him  that  bees  never  sting 
their  own  kind." 

I  can  hear  you  say  that  this  does  not  apply  to  war- 
times. And  that  is  true!  Moralities  are  swept  away 
in  times  of  war  and  that  is  one  of  the  worst  things 
about  war.  What  ethical  ruin  it  entails !  What  dam- 
age it  may  do  to  forgiving  natures ;  what  loss  of  moral 
susceptibilities ;  what  devastation  of  gentleness ! 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES       281 

But,  normally,  this  is  good  teaching  and  it  is  inter- 
esting to  note  what  the  pagan  philosopher  was 
thinking,  only  a  few  years  after  the  Nazarene  had 
finished  teaching  that  nobler  doctrine  of  brotherly  love, 
gentleness,  and  altruism  that  are  at  the  foundation  of 
the  moral  as  well  as  the  spiritual  code  of  Christianity. 
It  seems  as  tho  something  of  the  spirit  that  emanated 
from  the  martyrs  that  Marcus  Aurelius  himself  helped 
to  make  by  his  persecution  of  Christians,  had  gone 
from  the  prison  to  the  palace.  But  Marcus  Aurelius 
persecuted  Christians,  chiefly  because  of  politics  and 
because  some  of  the  Christians,  after  Christ  had  gone 
on  Home  and  they  had  lost  His  example,  were  very 
noisy  and  obstreperous  persons  and  really  encouraged 
persecution.  Surely,  they  did  not  cultivate1  gentle- 
ness— all  of  them. 

There  is  no  passage  in  all  scripture  that  has  been 
more  misinterpreted  than  that  suggestive  of  turning 
the  other  cheek.  Sects  have  been  formed  on  this  pas- 
sage of  scripture.  They  have  usually  demonstrated 
one  thing.  It  is  this :  You  cannot  reason  with  insane 
people.  Hang  to  your  ethics  as  long  as  possible.  Act 
mildly  to  the  limit.  Be  gentle  to  the  sane.  Be  kind  to 
the  insane.  Summon  all  of  your  arguments,  but  when 
the  tiger  flies  at  your  throat,  either  fight  or  run.  And 
if  he  is  a  man-eating  tiger,  your  duty  as  an  exemplar  of 
gentleness,  is  to  fight.  For  tigers  and  Germans  need 
to  be  restrained.  Your  first  duty  in  gentleness  is  to 
the  unprotected — to  society  in  general. 

But  there  are  lots  of  people  who  seem  to  think 
that  when  they  are  required  to  admonish,  to  advise  or 
to  differ  with  others,  they  must  bellow  all  over  the 
premises.  They  seem  to  think  that  they  must  bluster, 
swear,  assume  authority  and  announce  "I  am  the 
boss."  Nothing  doing!  No  need  whatever.  The 
English  officer  often  goes  into  battle  with  a  light  walk- 
ing stick  in  his  hand.  He  does  not  need  anything  more 


282       JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

for  his  "authority."  So,  too,  you  need  not  splutter  and 
growl  and  spit  like  a  bob-cat  whenever  you  approach  a 
neighbor  or  an  employee  or  an  under-clerk  in  your 
department,  with  a  reproval.  The  duty  is  not  merely 
passive,  therefore,  as  far  as  the  philosophy  of  Marcus 
Aurelius  is  concerned.  You  are  not  merely  to  be  gentle 
in  reply  to  ungentleness,  but  also  you  should  not  start 
things  in  the  first  place.  Keep  your  ethical  shirt  on. 
Keep  the  caloric  from  under  your  collar.  Don't  be  a 
Hun ;  be  a  Honey. 

Yes!  The  old  Pagan  was  right.  Kemember  how 
unconcernedly  Socrates  wore  his  old  sheepskin  when 
his  scolding  wife,  Xanthippe,  stole  his  only  coat  and 
ran  out  of  the  house  with  it.  Xanthippe  did  it  to  see 
Socrates  get  mad.  Socrates  declined  to  be  angry. 
Xanthippe  never  tried  it  again.  The  soft  answer  does 
indeed  turn  away  wrath.  Try  it.  And  not  only  try 
that  but  also  try  to  be  no  partner  in  wrath.  Let  God 
alone  indulge  in  Wrath — against  them  that  wilfully  do 
wrong  in  His  sight.  Your  part  is  to  keep  out  of  it, 
altogether. 


ON  "SOME  STOIC  PHILOSOPHY" 

ECKON  the  days  in  which  you  have  not  been 
angry.  I  used  to  be  angry  every  day;  row 
every  other  day ;  then  every  third  and  fourth 
day ;  and  if  you  miss  it  so  long  as  thirty  days, 
offer  a  sacrifice  of  thanksgiving  to  God. 

Epictetus  wrote  this,  first,  1860  years 
ago.  He  was  a  Stoic  slave  to  a  Roman  tyrant.  He 
probably  knew  a  thousand  times  more  than  his  mas- 
ter and  probably  kept  his  temper  better. 

If  you  need  advice  on  general  rules  of  conduct, 
there  is  no  better  than  this.  The  man  who  becomes 
angry  makes  a  mistake.  He  gives  away,  immediately, 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES       283 

all  the  advantages  he  originally  possessed.  Suppose 
him  to  have  been  a  man  of  good  judgment  in  business. 
If  he  gets  angry,  he  loses  his  business  judgment.  He 
no  longer  sees  things  clearly.  His  brain  is  stirred ;  his 
blood  is  racing;  his  mind  is  confused;  he  makes  mis- 
takes. Suppose  him  to  have  been  a  kindly  man.  If  he 
is  angry,  he  is  apt  to  be  unkind,  nay,  even  brutal. 
Suppose  him  to  have  been  a  just  man.  He  loses  his 
sense  of  justice.  Suppose  him  to  have  been  a  careful 
man.  He  loses  his  sense  of  care  and  exposes  himself 
to  dangers  unwittingly.  In  short,  the  angry  man  is 
partially  insane  and  the  man  who  is  not  angry  can 
always  get  the  better  of  him,  on  equal  terms,  because 
he  has  about  himself  a  degree  of  judgment  and  pru- 
dence and  so-called  "wits"  that  give  him  a  great 
advantage. 

Here  is  an  example.  In  prize-fighting,  it  is  the 
effort  of  the  one  fighter  to  get  the  other  angry.  When 
he  can  do  this  so  that  the  angry  man  actually  "sees 
red/*  so  to  speak,  then  he  has  a  distinct  advantage 
over  his  unbalanced  adversary.  The  wily  fighter 
refuses  to  accept  the  bait.  So,  too,  should  you  in 
business  or  in  daily  life.  Every  time  you  get  angry, 
you  average  to  make  a  fool  of  yourself ;  your  associates 
comment  upon  it;  you  are  set  down  as  a  distinct 
failure  in  that  respect.  It  is  commented  upon  as  a 
weakness.  "Too  bad,"  says  the  layman  of  the  other- 
wise good  lawyer,  "he  would  be  fine  counsel  in  court 
if  he  didn't  lose  his  temper."  Joseph  H.  Choate  won 
many  cases  against  one  of  the  greatest  attorneys  in 
the  United  States  by  playing  with  the  man's  temper. 
Mr.  Choate  was  always  affable.  Nobody  could  get 
him  angry.  Mr.  Choate  could  simulate  anger;  never 
indulging  in  it.  If  I  were  a  lawyer,  I  would  study 
Epictetus.  Being  a  newspaper  man,  I  don't  have  to. 
We  are  public  servants  and  not  permitted  to  get  angry. 


284      JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

Once  a  young  couple  were  married.  I  was  there 
and  saw  it.  After  the  knot  was  tied  and  they  came 
before  the  bride's  father,  a  man  of  wisdom  and 
equanimity,  he  gave  them  this  advice : — 

"I  cannot  hope,  my  daughter,  that  you  will  go 
thru  your  married  life  without  ever  getting  angry  at 
your  husband.  I  cannot  hope,  my  son,  that  you  will 
go  thru  life  without  ever  getting  angry  at  my 
daughter.  But  for  the  love  of  home  and  happi- 
ness, never — never — never — both  get  mad  at  the 
same  time." 

This  is  scientific.  Two  mad  men  leave  no  wise 
counsel  on  the  premises.  A  mad  man  and  a  mad 
woman  are  without  restraint.  So  in  this  household, 
of  which  I  speak,  it  has  been  the  rule  that  when  one 
gets  angry  the  other  keeps  cool  and  goes  to  laughing. 
It's  a  good  thing  for  young  couples  to  remember.  By 
and  by,  it  leads  to  the  philosophy  of  Epictetus. 

So,  I  say  that  it  is  money  in  your  pocket  not  to 
get  mad.  More  men  have  been  ruined  by  law  suits 
engendered  by  anger,  than  in  any  other  one  way. 
When  you  get  mad  you  give  away  your  trenches,  your 
ammunition,  your  reserves  and  your  leadership.  The 
enemy  then  gets  you. 


ON  "GOOD  MAJORS  AND  BAD" 

EOPLE  whom  office  has  never  compelled  to 
assume  authority  over  others  have  missed 
a  valuable  lesson  in  social  sympathy.  To 
have  been  a  "Major"  or  a  "Colonel"  in  war 
is  either  to  make  a  man  or  to  mar  him. 
Authority  goes  either  to  the  head  or  to  the 
heart.  Sometimes  it  makes  a  whistle  out  of  a  pig's 
tail  and  sometimes  it  makes  a  pig's  tail  out  of  a 
whistle.  Some  of  the  greatest  men  in  the  land  got 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES       285 

their  training  as  officers  in  the  Civil  War,  and  some 
of  the  failures  of  life  were  developed  in  the  same  way. 

One  day  after  the  Civil  War,  a  man  who  was 
riding  thru  the  farming  districts  of  the  Middle  West 
stopped  by  the  wayside  to  talk  with  a  farmer.  Sev- 
eral men  were  working  in  the  field  and  the  traveler 
was  interested  to  learn  that  most  of  them  had  been 
soldiers  in  the  war  and  that  among  them  were  a  num- 
ber who  had  been  officers. 

"That  man  over  there,"  said  the  farmer,  "happens 
to  have  been  a  private,  but  the  man  next  to  him  was 
a  corporal;  that  chap  over  there  was  a  major  and  over 
in  the  next  field  is  a  man  who  was  a  colonel." 

"Indeed,"  said  the  traveler,  "what  kind  of  work- 
men are  they?" 

"Well,"  said  the  farmer,  "the  private  is  a  first- 
class  man  and  the  corporal  is  a  pretty  good  worker." 

"Yes,"  said  the  traveler,  "how  about  the  major?" 

"He's  about  so-so." 

"But  the  colonel?"  persisted  the  traveler. 

"Well,"  said  the  farmer,  "I  ain't  a-goin'  to  say  a 
word  against  any  man  that  fit  in  the  war  to  save  the 
Union,  but  I  notify  you  right  here  and  now,  I  ain't 
goin'  to  hire  no  brigadier  generals." 

We  had  a  speech  at  the  Bowdoin  College  Alumni 
Association  the  other  evening  here  in  Lewiston  by  an 
officer  of  the  late  war  about  officers  and  service.  He 
said  that  he  never  would  advocate  a  form  of  compul- 
sory military  service  that  forced  a  boy  to  have  his 
spirit  broken  by  a  martinet.  The  glory  of  the  Ameri- 
can soldier  was  that  he  had  his  self-respect  still  with 
him,  not  broken  to  the  Kaiser's  goose-step  and  not 
broken  on  the  wheel  of  military  discipline  that  intended 
to  reduce  all  men  to  a  dead  level  of  blind  and  unrea- 
soning automata.  He  said  that  there  were  two  kinds  of 
officers — we  had  them  both.  One  would  call  his  men 
before  him  and  say:  "I  am  your  iuperior  officer  be- 


286       JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

cause  I  happen  to  be  such.  I  claim  no  superiority  as 
a  man  or  a  citizen.  I  recognize  you  as  fellow-Ameri- 
cans entitled  to  my  best  consideration  and  care.  I 
am,  however,  your  commanding  officer,  and  as  such, 
no  matter  how  it  has  come  about,  I  am  entitled  to 
your  obedience.  The  discipline  of  the  service  demands 
it;  your  country  is  entitled  to  it  and  I  shall  see  that 
the  service  gets  it.  We  are  working  together  for 
the  same  end." 

There  was  another  kind  of  officer  who  said  nothing 
of  the  kind  and  showed  that  he  believed  that  the 
men  were  beneath  the  consideration  of  his  mightiness. 
He  treated  men  as  slaves  and  with  the  fixed  determi- 
nation to  exact  the  last  measure  of  humility  from  them. 
It  was  his  pleasure  to  break  their  wills ;  drive  them 
to  tasks  beyond  their  strength;  mete  out  punishments 
for  the  sake  of  showing  his  power  and  exact  the  full 
measure  of  etiquette  toward  his  almightiness.  Men 
so  subjected  often  come  out  of  the  army  damaged  in 
Americanism — which  is  soul  and  body  of  life. 

The  army  does  not  differ  much,  after  all,  from 
business.  The  martinet  in  the  office  is  responsible  for 
most  of  the  un-Americanism  in  the  shop.  And  it  is 
odd  that  most  of  these  men  have  sprung  themselves 
from  the  shop.  Given  authority  and  forging  ahead 
they  have  fought  their  way  to  the  top  literally  over 
the  bodies  of  others,  and  established  there,  have  for- 
gotten that  they  once  were  shopmen.  They  walk  the 
quarterdeck  of  the  business  craft  much  as  the  old- 
fashioned  "bucko"  mates  and  captains  of  the  old 
clipper  ships  that  once  went  wind- jamming  around  the 
Horn,  ruling  with  a  curse  and  a  blow  as  prelude  to  the 
command. 

But— the  day  is  past,  long  past,  we  hope.  It  can't 
be  done  any  more.  Some  must  always  lead;  do 
the  thinking;  stand  at  the  wheel  and  steer;  navi- 
gate the  ship;  fight  the  corps;  but  he  need  not 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES       2S7 

be  drunk  with  his  power.  Nor  need  the  soldier 
or  the  workman  emulate  the  tyrant.  The  muti- 
neer and  the  slacker  is  as  bad  as  the  bad-boss.  Cheer- 
ful commands,  cheerful  compliance,  comradeship,  mu- 
tual responsibility,  mutual  advance — these  are  the 
solvents  of  all  future  questions.  You  may  think  that 
this  is  preaching.  If  you  do,  ask  someone  who  has 
been  in  the  service  and  who  has  done  his  own  think- 
ing. We  need  good  officers,  good  heads  of  business, 
bigger  ideals,  better  faith  both  ways  and  all  around. 


ON  "WHEN  I  AM  TIRED" 

RE  we  ever  really  tired,  except  it  be  both  of 
the  body  and  the  mind.  Tired  souls  are  not 
those  who  have  merely  toiled ;  for  the  muscles 
soon  relax,  the  functions  restore  themselves 
and  again  the  body  finds  itself  like  the  Ford 
car,  ready  for  another  cranking  with  a  full 
tank  of  gasoline  and  the  road  stretching  before  it  full 
of  wonders  and  with  strange  adventure  awaiting  it. 
No — we  are  not  "tired  out"  except  it  begin  with  the 
mind  and  the  nerve-force.  We  may  sit  a  brief  hour 
before  the  fire  and  watch  it  leaping  up  its  ladder  to  the 
open  sky  and  be  refreshed,  but  if  the  mind  be  disturbed 
and  the  soul  sick,  then  all  of  the  fire  and  all  of  the  arm- 
chair will  avail  but  little.  "I  am  weary  of  my  life 
because  of  the  daughters  of  Heth,"  said  Rebekah  to 
Isaac.  The  mother  was  the  first  in  history  to  proclaim 
the  state  of  her  mind — tired  out  with  worry  and 
watching  lest  her  son  Jacob  take  a  wife  out  of  the 
daughters  of  Canaan. 

I  am  impressed  with  the  error  of  them  that  work 
with  the  hands  and  the  bodies  alone.  How  little  they 
know  of  the  utter  weariness  of  the  other  half  of  the 
world — the  desk-ridden  toiler  who  sits  hour  by  hour 


288       JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

over  the  problem  of  the  day.  How  little  they  appre- 
ciate how  willingly  ihe  would  exchange  the  ceaseless 
round  of  figures  and  papers,  the  struggling  with  prob- 
lems of  research  and  accomplishment,  the  demands  of 
the  cashier's  office  and  the  bank,  for  the  strenuous  toil 
over  the  machine,  the  "going  over  the  top"  against 
obstacles  in  the  material  world,  the  building  of  things 
in  the  open,  the  war  against  earth,  water,  tides  of  the 
sea,  the  forests  and  all  things  primeval.  That  flayed- 
out  feeling  of  brain-fag!  That  never-ending  gnawing 
at  the  heart-strings,  that  sense  of  futility  as  one 
searches  his  soul  and  his  mind  for  inspiration  to  the 
betterment  of  mankind,  the  drain  on  the  preacher,  the 
teacher,  the  writer,  the  manager  of  a  business.  It  is 
all  folly !  This  idea  of  labor.  As  I  have  said  a  dozen 
times,  labor  is  not  "work;"  labor  is  rough-going  in 
work.  The  ship  labors  in  the  sea ;  the  engine  labors  at 
its  task ;  but  when  silently  moving  on,  it  "works"  well. 
We  are  born  in  "labor."  God,  alone,  works. 

Let  it  be  said,  therefore,  that  never  can  there  be  any 
reorganization  of  toilers,  that  does  not  include  the 
brain-workers  and  give  them  a  share  in  the  production 
of  the  world.  No  Soviet  rule  (surely  coming  in  no  dis- 
tant day,  I  make  this  a  prophecy,  tho  not  by  revolution 
but  in  simplified  and  useful  form  of  liberalism)  can  be 
effective  that  rules  out  the  worker  in  the  office,  at  the 
typewriter,  over  the  inventor's  or  the  editor's  desk. 
These  know  quite  well  what  it  means  to  be  tired — tired 
of  the  weariness  that  bids  sleep  fly  away;  that  rumples 
the  pillow;  that  makes  the  feet  feel  like  lead  and  the 
head  too  tired  to  lift.  No  rest  assuages  the  weariness 
and  no  balm  but  out-of-doors  and  change  can  bring 
relief.  These  men  cannot  be  counted  out  of  the  class 
of  "laborers."  "Much  study  is  a  weariness  to  the  flesh," 
saith  the  preacher. 

We  also  have  what  we  call  a  "good  tired."  We 
have  it  when  we  come  back  from  fishing  a  long,  happy 


JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES       289 

day  on  a  Maine  lake,  with  the  blue  above,  the  fish 
striking  with  hunger,  the  wind  sweet  on  our  faces,  the 
mountains  clear  in  the  distance.  We  have  it  after  we 
have  worked  happily  with  the  body  all  day  long  and 
accomplished  things.  We  have  it  when  we  have  come 
back  from  a  long  tramp  in  the  autumn  woods  and  see 
the  lights  of  the  camp  welcoming  our  tired  feet  to  a 
sweet  rest  by  the  camp-fire.  But  we  do  not  have  it, 
save  the  mind  has  been  employed  in  happy  things.  We 
do  not  have  it  when  the  body  rises  again  and  again  to 
toil  with  no  enjoyment.  We  do  not  want  these  tired 
folk.  We  do  not  want  the  world  run,  so  that  men  and 
women  shall  be  tired  and  unhappy.  The  best  work  is 
from  the  man  who  sings  at  the  machine  or  smilingly 
takes  up  his  morning  duty  at  his  desk.  Life  is  never 
going  to  get  ahead  making  other  people  unhappy.  We 
shall  go  mad,  unless  we  have  relief  for  the  mind  from 
fear  of  want  and  from  the  drive  of  life  urging  us  on  to 
the  grave.  These  are  the  things  in  which  tolerance  of 
the  workers  must  come  to  the  rescue  of  the  situation. 
We  must  have  the  mind  cared  for,  first ;  the  drag  upon 
the  nerve-force  stopped;  the  never-ending  draft  upon 
resources  ended,  so  far  as  is  possible. 

The  old-fashioned  father  used  to  regulate  the  boy's 
work.  If  the  lad  said,  "Father,  the  fish  are  biting  well 
today,"  the  father  said,  "You  keep  right  on  working, 
sonny,  and  they  won't  bite  you."  Time  may  be  when 
a  paternal  government  will  see  to  it  that  everyone 
produces  something — no  idlers,  no  drones  and  no  over- 
worked. Then  "labor"  will  not  quit  whenever  it  gets 
ten  dollars  ahead  and  go  on  a  pleasure  trip,  but  all  alike 
be  busy  and  happy.  I  wonder! 


ON  "SEARCHING  YOUR  NEIGHBOR'S  PAST" 

F  YOU  have  known  men  at  all  you  have  known 
the  man  who  is  good  because  he  was  born 
that  way  and  the  man  who  is  good  because 
he  has  fought  it  out  and  decided  that  it  is 
better,  that  way. 

How  likely  we  are  to  search  the  past  of 


people  to  find  out  if  they  have  ever  been  bad.  How 
prone  are  we  to  say  that  such  and  such  a  good  man 
has  not  so  much  to  the  credit  as  has  his  neighbor  who 
never  has  fallen  because  he  never  was  tempted.  We 
run  over  the  records  of  men's  lives  with  a  searching 
finger  and  stop  at  all  the  black  spots;  as  tho  all  the 
white  pages  and  all  the  tender  deeds  and  all  the  char- 
ities they  have  done  afterwards,  had  no  power  to 
blot  a  line. 

And  yet — in  God's  word,  we  find  that  this  is  not 
the  right  way.  And  in  all  philosophy  and  in  all  fair- 
play  and  in  all  practical  common-sense  we  know  that 
it  is  not  the  right  way.  How  can  it  be  right?  Here 
are  two  men — one  born  under  every  adverse  influence, 
vithout  parentage  that  could  foster  his  better  nature; 
cast  out  on  the  world  when  it  was  a  battle  to  live; 
made  to  fight  and  conscious  that  it  was  his  wits 
against  the  world,  or  starvation  was  the  alternative. 
And  here  is  the  other,  gently  reared,  no  need  to  worry 
for  money  or  friends.  And  if  both  are  equally  honest ; 
equally  fair;  equally  kind  to  his  neighbors;  equally 
respectable  and  decent  at  the  age  of  maturity,  which 
of  the  two  deserves  the  greater  praise  ?  It  is  a  shame 
— the  way  the  world  refuses  to  forget  the  evil  that 
men  have  done  while  yet  they  live  and  are  repentant. 
It  is  a  shame  that  the  Past  rises  to  confront  so  many 
men  and  women  who  have  sinned  and  repented  and 
reformed  and  found  the  better  way.  Instead  of  being 


JJJST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES      291 

reviled,  they  should  be  given  medals  of  honor,  the 
cross  of  victors,  the  assurance  that  the  world  gives 
to  them  that  fight  good  fights,  and  win. 

And  it  is  true  in  all  philosophy  and  in  all  times. 
I  turn  to  the  thumb-worn  pages  of  my  Montaigne  who 
says,  "I  fancy  virtue  to  be  something  else  than  the 
mere  propensity  to  goodness;  something  more  noble 
than  good-nature,  that  we  are  born  into  the  world 
withal.  Well-disposed  and  well-descended  souls  pur- 
sue, indeed,  the  same  methods  and  represent  the  same 
face  that  virtue  itself  does,  but  the  word  virtue  im- 
ports, I  know  not  what  more  great  and  active  than 
merely  for  a  man  to  suffer  himself,  by  a  happy  dispo- 
sition to  be  gently  and  happily  drawn  to  the  rule  of 
reason.  He  who  by  a  natural  sweetness  and  facility 
should  despise  injuries  received,  would  doubtless  do  a 
very  laudable  thing;  but  he  who,  provoked  and  nettled 
to  the  quick  by  an  offense,  should  fortify  himself  with 
the  arms  of  reason  and  after  a  great  conflict  master 
his  passion,  would  doubtless  do  a  great  deal  more.  The 
first  would  do  well ;  the  latter  virtuously." 

Thus,  be  it  my  message,  today,  to  say  what  every- 
one knows  and  so  few  remember — that  no  man  who 
has  never  been  tempted  knows  how  strong  he  really 
is;  and  no  man  who  has  been  tempted  and  fallen  is 
beyond  temptation;  and  the  man  who  is  redeemed 
beyond  danger  but  is  stronger  for  the  experience, 
is  the  nearer  to  being  master  of  his  soul.  And  this  is 
no  plea  for  yielding  to  temptation,  but  a  warning  to 
them  who  will  make  no  excuses  for  the  falling.  It  is 
far  better  to  conquer  in  the  first  place ;  but  it  is  better 
to  conquer  in  the  second  or  third  place  than  not  at  all, 
and  victory  makes  us  stronger,  by  the  sense  of  power 
in  itself. 

There  is  no  meaner  soul  than  the  untried,  scorning 
the  unredeemed.  I  should  be  afraid  of  myself,  had  I 
no  charity.  I  should  be  afraid  of  my  neighbors,  had 


292       JUST  TALKS  ON  COMMON  THEMES 

they  no  pity.  For  virtue  is  an  active,  not  a  passive 
attribute.  It  grows  not  by  lying  dormant  but  by  exer- 
cise. It  becomes  strong  in  temptation  and  weak  in 
the  cloister.  Beware,  therefore,  how  you  search  the 
past  of  men  and  women.  Rather  consider  them  as 
they  are,  for  goodness  and  virtue  are  constant  working 
forces  to  be  prized  for  what  they  may  do — not  for 
what  they  have  done. 


,I«AST  DATE 

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